laurel-crowned heroes, under the influence of a wonderfully cheap rum, were
seized at odd moments with an evident desire to start the war all over
again, there was not much difficulty encountered in maintaining a degree of
decorum that was highly satisfactory.

The sanitation of the municipality was rigorously inquired into, and
regulated; but it is only justice to the residents of Mayaguez to say that
little reform was necessary in this regard, as the current statistics of
mortality and disease amply proved. Of the few changes made, however, one
may be specifically mentioned.

[Illustration: A Ruined Church along our Line of March.]

[Illustration: A Puerto Rican Laundry.]

It was the custom whenever a peasant died to carry the corpse to the
cemetery in a coffin hired at transient rates, and then, having dumped the
deceased into a shallow grave, to return what is facetiously known as the
"wooden overcoat" to its original owner, for further service. This was bad
enough, considering the danger of infection thus engendered; but much worse
remains behind. It seems that the plot of ground reserved for dead paupers
was very circumscribed. So it had become necessary to bury four or five
bodies in the same hole, the last one in being perhaps no more than six
inches from the light of day. And, as if this state of affairs were not
already sufficiently horrible, we found that the congestion was sometimes
still further relieved by a wholesale emptying of graves, the bones thus
removed being thrown into some adjacent corner above ground, where they lay
undisturbed in the hot sunshine and smelt to heaven. This ghastly practice
was summarily stopped.