The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1898-06-25
THE RAINY SEASON IN CUBA.
SAID to be the Most Charming of the Year,
Eoidemics Due to Negligence.

Mr.. William T. Hornaday, chief natu-
ralist of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, has spent nearly ten years
in East India, Borneo, and Sumatra
iungles collecting rare animals, birds,
insects, and serpents for the Smith
sonian. He is the only white man who
ever lived among the head hunters OF
Borneo.
Call this talk ct the danger in Cuba
of the rainy season, yellow fever, etc,
is greatly exaggerated" Mr.. Horna-
DAY said recently. Because the Span
ish army has lost heavily, many un-
informed persons fear that the country
would be as fatal to newly arrived
Americans as it was to green Span
iards. The Spanish troops I saw were
wretchedly fed and clothed, and abso-
lutely no heed is taken to enforce the
most obvious sanitary regulations.
Then the food, clothing, medicines,
everything the men should have to live
upon, is furnished by contractors, VINO
stand in with the officers and simply
starve the poor soldiers into disease
and death. The Spanish women nave
a saying, When our sons go to Cuba
or the Philippines they never return.
Many Spanish mother, whose son IS
coming near the time when he must 90
service in the army is praying that
Cuba and Porto Rico may be lost to
Spain before her son goes away.
"After five years of living in the most
malarial jungles on earth, IN the MIDST
Of miasmatic swamps, drinking swamp
water, and often having to eat unac-
customed and badly cooked food,
never had but one touch e jungle
fever and that only laid me up SIX
or seven days. I owe my excellent
health to two or three precautions. 1
never slept on the bare ground nor IN
the rain, and always under shelter. l
always wore light fanrels next to tne
skin, and never slept in damp clothes'
Whatever else might have to do with
out, two changes Of flannel underwear
besides that I had on, were always IL
hand. Take from six to FIVE grains OF
quinine every morning in a cup OF not
coffee if you have it; if not, then in
hot water. Have your shoes to fit you,
even if you must buy then yourself,
though the United States is furnishing
it's troops with an excellent marching
shoe. With these precautions and
dose of some light laxative twice
week, there need be 70 more fear CT
fever in Cuba than there is in Mis-
souri,"
Mr.. Morrillas, a Cuban born, and for
some years an assistant surgeon IN the
United States navy, now in the Marine
Hospital service in the tropics, said:
The rainy season, as it is called out
CT Cuba, is to Cubans the most charm
ing season of the year. It begins gener-
ally about the middle Of May and lasts
to the middle of September. 1t usually
rains in the afternoon, and sometimes
the fail is very heavy and accompanied
by such thunder and lighting as one
never knows outside the tropics. It
generally stops at sunset, which is
simply unspeakably grand in its cloud
effects. I rarely ever have known it
to rain at night. 1t is this so-called
rainy season that gives life and vigor
to the growing vegetation and makes
our sugar and tobacco crops what they
are. By eating well-cooked food and
eschewing over-indulgence in the fruits
of the country, usually so tempting -
strangers, always sleeping under some
sort of shelter and not on the bare
ground, the green Yankee from New
Hampshire hills may laugh at the
bogy of the rainy season and the yel-
low fever. 1t is we'll for the unaccli-
mated man the first three months of his
stay to take from three to six grains
of quinine every morning and a mild
purgative, say twice week. You may
be as wet as possible if you are on the
move, but when you stop change your
wet clothes for dry ones, socks and all.
You will never have this fever If you
follow these easily remembered rules