The herald., 1898-09-11

COkAMO, W INiCO, AUS -ANSNSAis
is such a beautiful call that men who
would much prefer to sleep are sc
charmed by it's notes that they sit uI
and forget to be indignant. But there
was no reveille on the morning Of the
day the Sixteenth Pennsylvania took CO.
amo. AT Gen. Wilson's headquarters 6
sentry shook the flaps Of the tents and
told us it was time to get up. He re-
minded one of Pullman car porter
shaking the curtains of berth and say
in: only twenty minutes to New York ;
1t was so unmlitary that every one re.
fused to wake.
Then Gen. Wilson taught the officers
of his staff lesson in punctuality by
riding off without them. and they had
to gallop three miles to overtake him.
The road was better than any road out
side of the city parks in America, with a
hard. sloping surface, and rain cutters
at each side. and brick bridges over the
streams. 1t was shaded by pink and rec
trees and a few comomn or garden trees
of green, so that we might not think
that we were passing through a success
sion of triumphal arches. Sometimes or
our right, above the sugar cane. we saw
the sea, and white spray breaking al
| the reefs.
AS the cavalcade passed. the Porte
Ricans came out lazly to the roadside
and peered at the officers over the fences
of cactus. and neglected. brown, naked
children fell out of the doors and bumped
down the steps. bowling dsmally. The
white helmet of the general was still half
| mile ahead, and the sabertash Of his
aid was beating his horses flanks like a
rlIlh Tho honfc of l.
hammers on the road, and the swords
and picket pins clattered and tangled.
| There We're great hills to the left and
right, clothed with hundred shades, of
green, and below them green lakes of
sugar cane, with the corrugated iron
| roofs and tall chimneys of the sugar mills
| rising out Of them. and looking like tur-
| tle-back steamers pushing their way
through the fresh water lakes.
AS we raced by we saw teams of six
oxen pulling long plows through choco-
late colored earth. Small boys rode one
Of each yoke of oxen and sang in chorus
a drowsy. droning song which sounded
like the song the lascars sing on a p.
and o. steamer when they pull on rope.
The morning was very still. for there
are very few birds in Porto Rico, and
Olliy tlt HuIl VI insect lie
answered the ring of the horses hoofs.
The white helmet of the general halted
next to an open field of high, yellow
grass. where four brown guns pointed
at blockhouse on the hill above Coamo.
AS we drew up one of the guns roared
and flashed. and cloud Of white smoke
rushed forward and stopped as though it
had struck solid wall. and then swept
back again. hiding the gun and the men
about it in curtain of mist.
The horses under the trees reared and
tugged at their brides and danced, and
terrified human beings came running up
the road, carrying their children, and
shying like the horses whenever shot
was fired. A few Mauser rifles answered
the guns, but the bullets flew high and
soon ceased to fall.
The blockhouse smoked and crumbed,
and then burst into red flames. The ar
tillery limbered up again. and then
crawled off up a hill to the right, and
troop of Brooklyn moved off still fur
ther to the right and disappeared over
a hill.
All the infantry started forward. II
advanced in beautiful order, with scouts
and skirmishers beating through the high
grass and creeping up behind rocks and
popping up suddenly over the crests of
the hills. In the level plain at the left
of the road the regiments moved in
blocks of blue and brown. The men in
blue made a target so per cent more con-
spicuous than that made by the men in
brown.
On the other side of Coamo the Span
iards We're hurrying across the bridge
and out into the white road. On the hills
above the Sixteenth regiment of Penn