they are not necessarily his friends. They are the men the free life
of the rifle-pits enabled him to know and to understand as the
settled relations of home life and peace would never have permitted.
At that time none of them guessed that the "amateur colonel," to whom
they talked freely as to a comrade, would be their Commander-in-
Chief. They did not suspect that he would become even the next
Governor of New York, certainly not that in a few years he would be
the President of the United States. So they showed themselves to him
frankly, unconsciously. They criticised, argued, disagreed, and he
became familiar with the views, character, and worth of each, and
remembered. The seeds planted in those half-obliterated trenches
have borne greater results than ever will the kitchen-garden.

The kitchen-garden is immediately on the crest of the hill, and near
it a Cuban farmer has built a shack of mud and twigs and cultivated
several acres of land. On Kettle Hill there are three more such
shacks, and over all the hills the new tenants have strung stout
barbed-wire fences and made new trails and reared wooden gateways.
It was curious to find how greatly these modern improvements confused
one's recollection of the landscape, and it was interesting, also, to
find how the presence on the hills of 12,000 men and the excitement
of the time magnified distances and disarranged the landscape.

During the fight I walked along a portion of the Santiago road, and
for many years I always have thought of that walk as extending over
immense distances. It started from the top of San Juan Hill beside
the block-house, where I had climbed to watch our artillery in
action. By a mistake, the artillery had been sent there, and it
remained exposed on the crest only about three minutes. During that
brief moment the black powder it burned drew upon it the fire of