uld not go for food; and if they could have done so
there was little or none to be had. Horrible odors filled the air.
Terror walked abroad. It was a prodigious task for anybody to
undertake, but it was undertaken, and in the following manner:

Simultaneously certain main lines of work were mapped out by Wood and
officers put in charge of each subject, the commanding officer
reserving for himself the planning, the general supervision, the
watching, as well as the instituting of new laws based upon the
existing system of the Code Napoleon.

It was first necessary to feed the people and to bury the dead. There
were so many of the latter that they had to be collected in lots of
ninety or a hundred, placed between railway irons, soaked in petroleum
and burned outside the city. It was such dreadful work, this going
into deserted homes and collecting dead bodies for the flames, that
men had to be forced to it. All were {111} paid regularly, however,
and the job was done. General Wood's own account of this task is
better than any second-hand description can even hope to be.

"Horrible deadly work it was, but at last it was finished. At the same
time numbers of men were working night and day in the streets removing
the dead animals and other disease-producing materials. Others were
engaged in distributing food to the hospitals, prisons, asylums and
convents--in fact to everybody, for all were starving. What food there
was, and it was considerable, had been kept under the protection of
the Spanish army to be used as rations. Some of the far-seeing and
prudent had stored up food and prepared for the situation in advance,
but these were few.

"All of our army transportation was engaged in getting to our own men
the tents, medicines and the thousand and one other things required by
our camps, and as this had to be done through seas of mud it was slow
work. We could expect no help from this source in our distribution of
rations to the destitute population, so we seized {112} all the carts
and wagons we could find in the streets, rounded up drivers and
laborers with the aid of the police, and worked them under guard,
willing or unwilling, but paying well for what they did. At first we
had to work them far into the night.

"Everything on wheels in the city was at work. Men who refused and
held back soon learned that there were things far more unpleasant than
cheerful obedience, and turned to work with as much grace as they
could