strewn with boulders. The road was rarely level and frequently the
upland parts were washed out. Sometimes it was only the boulder-clad
bottom of a ravine; again the water would have washed out the gully on
one side so deep as to threaten overturning the guns. The portions of
the road between the valleys and the top of these foot-hills were the
worst places the detachment had to pass. These ascents and descents
were nearly always steep. While not at all difficult for the man upon
horseback or for the man on foot, they were frequently almost too
steep for draft, and they were always washed out. In places it was
necessary to stop and fill up these washouts by shoveling earth and
stone into the places before the detachment could pass.

[Illustration: Cuban Soldiers as They Were.]

On one of these occasions, while heaving rock to fill up a bad
washout, Priv. Jones was stung by a scorpion. Jones did not know what
had bitten him, and described it as a little black thing about as long
as his finger. Fortunately there was a small supply of whisky with the
detachment, and this remedy was applied to Jones internally. Some
soldier in the detachment suggested that a quid of tobacco externally
would be beneficial, so this also was done. It was not a dressing
favorable to an aseptic condition of the wound, perhaps, nor was there
anything in the quid of tobacco calculated to withdraw the poison or
neutralize its effects, so the doctors may characterize this as a very
foolish proceeding; but country people skilled in simples and herb
remedies might tell some of these ultra scientific surgeons that the
application of a quid of tobacco or of a leaf of tobacco to the sting
of a wasp or the bite of a spider, or even the sting of a scorpion, is
nearly always attended by beneficial results. In fact, when Jones was
stung there was a surgeon, a medical officer, who turned up even