GOOD-BYE TO CUBA
From Matanzas the party journeyed to Cardenas, where a day was spent
in sight-seeing, and then took the train for Santa Clara, stopping off
for two hours at the city of Colon. The route now lay around some lofty
mountains and the scenery was grand in consequence. Two days were spent
at Santa Clara and then they moved on to Cienfuegos on the south coast.
“Cienfuegos means the City of a Hundred Fires,” said Professor Strong.
“Why it is called that I cannot tell excepting it may be on account of
volcanic actions of years ago. It is probably the most up-to-date city
in Cuba and will be still better after the sanitary arrangements have
been completed.”
“Wasn’t there some sort of a fight off Cienfuegos during the late war?”
questioned Sam.
“Yes. Some of our warships went in to cut the cables lying on the
harbor bottom and the Spanish soldiers gave them battle. It was a hot
contest, but it did not last very long.”
The boys found Cienfuegos fully as up-to-date as the professor had
said it was. To be sure there were many narrow streets and not a few
old buildings, but the general appearance was far superior to that
of many towns through which they had passed. There were many fine
public buildings and a nice park, where a fountain played and where
a band held forth in the cool of the evening. The natives, too, were
well dressed, even the children wearing shoes and stockings, articles
usually lacking at places in the interior.
“Don’t see youngsters half dressed here,” remarked Frank. “It’s awful
how they let ’em run around at some villages. They ought to be ashamed.”
“It’s what they have been brought up to, Frank,” returned Mark. “They
don’t look at it as anything of a disgrace. Our own Indians didn’t use
to wear much, and now look at them. Why, Darry told me he saw some at
an agency in the far West wearing patent leather boots and stove-pipe
hats.”
“I guess Darry was drawing on his imagination,” laughed Frank. “But I
know they dress well, some of them. I’ve seen them up at St. Regis, in
New York state.”
At Cienfuegos passage was obtained on the _City of Madrid_ for Santiago
de Cuba. Before purchasing his steamer tickets the professor made
certain that the accommodations would be first-class, so that the party
would experience no such trouble as had fallen to their lot on board of
the _Chester_.
“That’s right,” said Sam, in speaking of the matter to Amos Strong.
“One such experience is enough. I wonder if we’ll ever set eyes on
Captain Sudlip again.”
“I hope not, Samuel. The less we fall in with such people the better
off we will be.”
“I believe you, sir. He and that Dan Markel would make a team for
meanness.”
“Wonder if we’ll ever see Markel again,” remarked Frank.
“Don’t want to see him,” growled Hockley.
“We don’t, that’s a fact,” put in Mark, yet they were to see the man
from Baltimore, and under very peculiar circumstances.
Now that they had spent over two weeks on land the boys did not object
to going on shipboard once more. The run eastward along the coast of
Cuba to Santiago Bay would take a little over two days, the distance
being little less than four hundred miles, around Cape Cruz.
“We will not run close to shore,” said the professor. “If you will look
at the map you will see that there are many islands here, and also many
keys, as they are called--little islands. The channels are dangerous,
too, but especially in a storm.”
“I hope we don’t get any storm,” said Darry.
His wish was fulfilled and the trip to Santiago passed off without
anything out of the ordinary happening. The _City of Madrid_ proved an
old but very comfortable steamer, and the meals served were more than
satisfactory.
“There is where the _Merrimac_ was sunk by Lieutenant Hobson,” said the
professor, as they passed the spot, in the channel leading from the
Caribbean Sea to Santiago Bay. “Hobson and his brave men were fired
upon from half a dozen points about here and in spite of all they could
do were finally caught and placed under arrest.”
“But they were afterwards released,” put in Frank. “It was a daring
thing to do, that’s sure.”
They found Santiago very much like other Cuban cities they had visited.
But the recent rule by United States authority was very much in
evidence and even the side streets, unusually narrow, were clean and
orderly. Santiago lies near the head of the bay, on the eastern shore,
and in the distance they could see the hills of El Caney and San Juan,
made famous in the Spanish-American war by Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and
others of Uncle Sam’s soldier boys. Coming up the coast from Cape Cruz
they had already had pointed out to them the spots where the Spanish
warships had either been sunk or run ashore by our warships under
Commodores Sampson and Schley.
“It must have been a great victory,” said Darry, when they were touring
the city. “How scared the people must have been when they were told
that our troops were pressing in on them.”
“The fortifications were several miles outside of the city limits,”
returned the professor. “But gradually, after the fall of the
blockhouses at El Caney and San Juan, our troops hemmed the Spaniards
in closer and closer, and then there was, of course, much anxiety.
You see, the Spanish soldiers were in a bad situation, for even the
citizens of the town were largely against them and hoped for a Yankee
victory.”
Among the places of interest visited were the prisons in which our
captured soldiers and sailors had been kept. Some of the underground
dungeons made them shudder.
“Cubans were kept here as well as our people,” said Professor Strong.
“Some of the Cuban rebels, as they were called, were held in solitary
confinement for years. It was horrible, and it is a grand good thing
that Spain’s hold on this island has at last been broken.”
In Santiago they saw something which they had already noted in other
towns but which nevertheless made then laugh again and again. This was
a milkman driving his cows through the street and crying: “Milk for
sale! Good milk for sale!” in Spanish. When somebody wanted milk the
vendor would stop one of his cows, take the bowl or shell brought to
him, and milk out as much of the lacteal fluid as was desired.
“Anyway, they get it fresh,” was Frank’s comment, when talking of the
matter. “They can’t adulterate it either.”
The boys had thought to spend several days in Santiago, which is the
capital city of the Eastern Department of Cuba, but Professor Strong
learned that a particularly good steamer would sail for Cape Haytien
in Hayti and San Juan, Porto Rico, on the day following, and he
resolved to take this, so a talked-of ride into the interior had to be
given up.
“Never mind,” said Amos Strong. “When we get to Porto Rico we will take
the long ride over the old military road from San Juan to Ponce. That
will give you a good idea of rural life in the West Indies. If we miss
this steamer there is no telling when we will get one quite so good.”
“Oh, let’s go on by all means,” put in Hockley. “Santiago is too dead
slow for me. It’s a good deal like all the rest of Cuba.”
“Oh, Jake, you want to wake up!” cried Sam, impulsively. “I haven’t
heard you say a good word for any of the places. To me they are all
full of interest. We are learning a great deal by traveling around.”
“Now don’t preach!” interrupted the lank youth. “I know what I am
doing.” And then he continued, as the professor turned away: “It would
be all right if we had a lively crowd along and if a fellow could do as
he pleased when it came to sport. But as it is----” And he ended with a
shrug of his shoulders.
That very night, as Hockley was walking along the street, he passed
a ship’s chandlery and in the window saw a sign, “Pitch for Sale.”
Struck by a sudden idea after he had gone by, he retraced his steps and
entered the shop, and asked the price of the pitch. It was cheap enough
and he soon had about a pint in his possession, done up securely in a
tin can and wrapped in a heavy paper. He secreted the bundle under his
coat.
The idea that had entered his mind was not wholly original with him.
In one of the cheap novels he had read, “Pete Prankley, the Sassiest
Boy in Sawtown,” Pete, the hero had had no end of fun by putting pitch
into his father’s shoes at home and on the minister’s seat at church.
It was a roaring good joke, according to Hockley’s notion, and to play
something like that on the other boys would be just the thing.
But how could he do it without being detected? It might prove easy
enough to get the pitch into the shoes without being seen, but if all
the crowd suffered but himself they would surely lay the blame on him,
and he had no idea of making himself suffer with them.
“Oh, I’ve got it!” he exclaimed at last, when he had cudgeled his
brain for over an hour. “Just the thing! I’ll have my revenge on all of
them, and one of them will catch it for keeps, too! It’s the best plan
yet!”
And he almost fell to hugging himself with delight.