Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-27
TRYING ORDEAL FOR TROOPS
Our Men at Sevilla Suffered From Heat and
Thirst.
Ofacers are Afraid of Finding Span-
fish sympathizers Among the
Cuban Allies.
Special Dispatch to The Evening Star.

Special Dispatch to The Evening Star.
PORT ANTONIO, June 26.-It is probable
that our troops were hurried into action in
the fighting about Sevilla too soon. They
had been nine days on the cool ocean. Vol
Cnteers, like the rough riders, were put
ashore in the evening and ordered without
much breakfast to advance over the hill
and take Sevilla.
1t was an eight-mile march over a shade
less plateau through briery underground,
like path fenced with barbed wire. They
were disabled more by the conditions than
by the ambushed enemy. All courage would
have been scorched out Of less thorough
bred men. Their canteens soon were emp
tied. No water could be had. HELL" said
enc of those who returned, contains now
no terrors for ma"
Suffered From Thirst.
Their tongues swellled ih their mouths,
their throats were shrIvi ieled and their
breath was drawn with effort. The plain
for two miles was Uttered with abandoned
outfits, too heavy to carry.
The mules stampeded with officers dun
mage. The newspaper correspondents, who
had rough burden for three miles, cast
away even necessities like food. All learn
ed by a severe lesson that if they dress,
eat and drink in tropical fashion, and take
things more slowly than in New York,
other dangers are small.
Nothing more has been heard of the
Purissima Conception. She is supposed to
have landed from seventy to one hundred
packages of food at Manzanilla and Benito
Estanger. She sailed from Kingston to
Manzanilla with a thousand barrels of
flour, ham, kerosene, rice. onions, meal,
bacon. fish, beans and 4SO bags of corn,
purchased by Ramon Pastora, a repres en-
tative of Blanco, who came from Adula to
make Jamaica the base of Spanish pur-
poses. The cargo will be sent overland to
Havana.
Further west than Manzanilla, around
Cienfuegos, shipping masters report unin-
terrupted smuggling. Lawless traders hug
the shore and sail without running lights
at night. They drop their sails in the day
time so as to be difficult to see
Insurgents Not Fully Trusted.
Valuable as the insurgent allies have
been, their full services cannot be en-
ployed, because they are not fully to be
trusted. They are courageous and they
know the dense manigua, which they enter
with the Few shoes the navy gave them,
slung about their necks, as articles too
precious to use.
Our men suffer considerably from the
cacd. Contact with one of them buries in
Vulnerable needles in ones iiesh But to
such pains as result the "Cubebs," as the
marines call the allies. are immune, and
they rush into brushwood that causes our
men to hesitate
Much bushvhacking is evidently going to
be necessary, and we have only a few
western troops trained in thai sort Of iigI.t-
Ing, the insurgents could be Of immense as-
sistance. But how can We be sure, SAID
an officer the other day, that one of them
is not Spaniard, and ready to lead US into
trouble? We can't speak this 'nigger Cas-
tilian' of theirs; when they guide US, we
have to go it blind. and we should trust
them completely not at ALL"