he roads were more like ditches.
Thick underbrush, prickly bushes and tall grasses grew in many places.
A number of men were set to work making roads, so that the wagons with
the army supplies could push on. It was the wet season, and rain fell
every day. Sometimes the streams would rise quickly and flood the new
roads. When the rain was not falling the air was hot, and a steam
seemed to rise from the ground. It seemed as if our men had no chance
at all.

Spanish soldiers had been sent out from Santiago, and were now busy
building log forts on hills a few miles from our camps, and piling up
stones and branches of trees to make mounds, and putting up fences of
barbed wire. In such places of shelter the Spaniards waited for our
troops to march forward.

You must understand that the city that our troops wanted to reach was
Santiago, but between them and it lay this rough country, where
marching would be so hard, and where the Spaniards had forts on some
of the hilltops.

[Illustration: Landing Troops at Daiquiri.]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BATTLE OF LAS GUASIMAS.

A Number of our officers thought it would be best not to go forward
till some roads had been made, so that the army wagons could be sent
on; but General Shafter thought it would be best to march on at once.
He feared that after a week or ten days in that climate many of our
men might have fever and be unfit for service. So, even before all the
men had landed, General Shafter ordered the first ones to go forward
and drive the Spaniards from a place near Siboney. Thus, some of our
troops began their march just after landing from the boats. About two
hundred Cuban soldiers went with them, to lead the way and watch for
the hiding places of the Spaniards.

The troops reached the place in the evening, but found that the
Spaniards had left it and gone about three miles further westward to a
stronger fort. Our men rested all night, and before daylight the next
morning--Friday, June 24th--they marched on to hunt the enemy.

Now I must tell you something about these soldiers who were going to
fight their first battle in Cuba. There were nearly a thousand men;
some were "Regulars," others were "Volunteers." They belonged to the
Cavalry division of the Army--the soldiers who go on horses. But for
this first work in Cuba they had to go on foot, without their horses.

The "Volunteers" numbered about five hundred. They belonged to a
regiment called the "Rough Ride