The route from Yauco to Sabana Grande lies for some two miles along the
level and creditable road leading to Guanica, suddenly going off at right
angles just beyond a picturesque sugar-mill into as uneven, crooked, and
hilly a highway as can well be imagined.

I cannot tell you in adequate language just how the tropical sun punishes
the unacclimated Northerner, especially if he be a foot-soldier tramping
along in a blinding dust, parched of throat, empty of belly, and loaded
down with a pack that would make a quartermaster's mule to fake the
glanders. If you have been there, it needs no words of mine to galvanize
your memory; and, if you have not, you cannot understand. This matter of
the soldier's pack and what to do with it became a subject of serious
consideration during the recent war, in both Cuba and Puerto Rico. On the
march, in the charge or pursuit or retreat, it is a senseless, clogging,
spirit-shackling incubus, a rank absurdity, and an utter impossibility. As
a result, after three days of active campaign the infantryman is seen gayly
stalking along with no burden save his rifle, ammunition-belt, and a wisp
of gray blanket, which seems to me to be a fatuous and footless condition
of affairs that might well be quickly remedied for the benefit of all
concerned.

[Illustration: Plaza Principal, Mayaguez. A Public Celebration of the New
Flag's Advent, under the Auspices of the Local School-teachers and their
Pupils.]

As we passed the occasional little hacienda, set in its grove of cocoanut
palms or orange-trees, dusky and wrinkled women came forth from the doors,
bearing upon their heads huge jars, from which we filled our ever-parched
canteens with cool, sweet water. They also brought us mangoes and other