r supper; with a full allowance
of coffee and hard tack at all three meals.

Anybody will be able to understand that we were pretty hungry at the end of
the second day. We were thirsty too--I paid as much as fifty cents for a
glass of ice-water from the cabin--but I will skip the mass of details. We
had seen the piles of neat cans, labelled "roast beef," stacked up on the
dock at Port Tampa, and we were impatient for the first mess-call that
made us acquainted with the contents of those cans. I regret that I cannot
adequately describe to you the appearance of the stuff. I will simply say
that it looked filthy, was covered with a sort of slime, and emitted a
nauseous odor. It was very hard to even gaze at it and remain unmoved,
but we did more than that--we tried to eat it. I managed to swallow three
mouthfuls and immediately became wretchedly sick. The example seemed to be
popular.

On the succeeding day we were each given an unopened can of the meat, which
was supposed to last us for twenty-four hours. Most of the men threw their
portions overboard at once; a few packed away the "corpse"--as we already
called it--for purposes of trade with the unsophisticated Cubans; and I
kept my can as a souvenir. I did not, however, keep it long; for, chancing
to drop it upon the deck, the contents exploded with a distinct report,
startling me not a little and covering my person with the debris. At the
time I thought this experience was going to be altogether unique, but I
discovered afterward that the same thing happened in a great many other
instances.

Having abandoned the beef, we were forced to subsist on hard tack and
tomatoes for the rest of the voyage, and hailed with joy our anchorage at
Daiquiri. But we were too previous. During our ten days' stay in Cuba we
found the "corpse" still waiting for us in the mess, and we carried the
ghastly burden along when we finally steamed away for Puerto Rico.

We landed at Guanica on the 25th of July, which meant that we had been
half-starved for twenty-two days. We had forgotten the "Maine" and would
have greeted Weyler himself with a glad sweet smile, had he come bearing in
his hands food fit for a human being. Once more disembarked, we lost sight
of the canned roast beef for good--save at extremely rare intervals while
on the march. We found no difficulty in eating the beef obtained from
Puerto Rican steers, although it was tough and bloodless; and we received
salt pork often enoug