CHAPTER XVIGOOD-BYE TO CUBA
FromMatanzas 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 Spanishsoldiers 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 dresswell, some of them. I’ve seen them up at St. Regis, in New York state.”
At Cienfuegos passage was obtained on theCity of Madridfor 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 theChester.
“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 Cubato 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. TheCity of Madridproved an old but very comfortable steamer, and the meals served were more than satisfactory.
“There is where theMerrimacwas 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 byUnited 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 learnedthat 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 hehad 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.