The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-17
IN CUBA.
boston Writer Admits thn& II Is
More Beautiful than Massachusetts,.

boston transcript.
The thing which stands above everything
else is Cuba itself The picture of 1t We
saw 1t dominates the war We had heard of
1t as wonderful country but 1t is more
wonderful than any account ever pictured
II. We saw no more than corner of it, but
the quality OF really great symphony may
be inferred from bar of it. Some one said
to me as l settled down to the view of a
lovely bit of Massachusetts. whose green
pastures, glittering lakes and rounded hills
lay glittering in the sun, rs not this as
beautiful as Cuba?" and l could only an
swer THE beauty of Massachusetts, is posi-
tive, but the beauty of Cuba is superlative.
On the stormbeaten shore the rocks are
sometimes bleak and bare; but take only a
step inland, and the earth even on steep
mountainsideS, is covered with thick layer
of rich loan, in which the trees and grass
thrive almost beyond belief Trees and
grass everywhere; you will scarcely find ten
acres of forest without ten acres to balance
1t alongside of clear, clean, sweet. even
grass thick and luXuriant, but strangely
having beneath it apparently no rotting lay
er of last years growth. AS often as we
made new camp, we could lie down on
this grass as on pillow, in absolute GER
tainty that it harbored no noxiouS insect
or reptile. l never saw bit of earth that
seemed as wholesome and sweet to live upon
as all the land we saw in Cuba that had
not been polluted sby the touch of man.
Think of tropical woods without a wild ami
NAL more formidable than raccoon or
crab, without a venOmouS snake, and so
free of insect life that our army never saw
a mosquito or gnat in the whole Santiago
campaign If the Almighty ever made a
land which was perfect to live in, it must
be the mountainous eastern province of
Cuba.
Green SUBMITS towering above ones head
clear streams of swiftly flowing water be-
meath ones feet, the broad tops of royal
palms, taller than New England church
spires, bedecking the landscape in every di-
rection, far-rea ching valleys opening to the
eye between the hills, and now and then the
winding of the path to hilltop which gives
a view of the bluest sea that ever shone to
the sky-thiS is the Cuba that l saw. Every
day | blessed it a beneficent and health
breathing paradise-until one day i was
fever" Then l began to wonder whether
after all, some poison lurlxed in the whole
scme-looking land. Every day that | re-
manned in Cuba after that heard of some
new disease which seemed to thrive with
especial vigor in this beautiful country.
have certainly never been in any place that
1 was more DESTROYS of getting out 0e at
Siboney. where, among reeking huts, on a
soil deprived of its carpet Of grass and CIV
ing out the absorbed pollutions of centuries,
no one could long be well. AS look back
at the matter, it seems to me that every i'll
ness that is charged to the Cuban climate
really belongs to the account of human be-
ings who have abused natures bounty. AS
the army, it must have come as inevitably
If the army had led such a life in Massachu-
sets instead of Cuba. Wet clothes every
night, insufficient covering, scanty and i'm
proper food, long, hard marches under fear
full burdens and in a hot sun. too little sleep
or none at all-theSe are enough to make
any men, anywhere, sick in a short time.
unhealthiness out of such human impru-
denceS.