Trooper Tales — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a2 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. in the deepening twilight. Out in the bay, the gunboat leaned on its moorings and watched. All at once there ripped over the hot Cuban hills a ragged carbine volley. Evidently the black troops had found something to play with. An hour afterwards, and the hills were great dark shadows, for the night overhung them. The white shav- ing of a moon was higher. About this time every darkey cavalryman in the Bay Horse troop heard the howls of a fallen sentry, and the angry cackling of an outraged game chicken. But not one of the boys who stayed behind saw the black recruit, who was clutching a loaded carbine and whirring away toward the great black shadows. Now, everybody knows that you can’t see Santiago from the coast. You can’t even see Morro Castle a mile out at sea, because its ramparts are the color of the rocks. Entering the channel, your craft will be at the mercy of Morro’s guns. Then you will pass the sunken Merrimac, and a couple of Spanish men-of-war, the cabins of which are excellent breeding-places for big fish. After that you will see a round basin full of warm, yellow water and hungry sharks. To the left is a sun-scorched plain, where yellow-fever patients fight for life, losing generally; and in front, sitting on the slope of a hill, is Santiago, minus some of its rottenness of a year ago, but hardly immacu- late yet. Four miles back of Santiago there is a hill which looks down upon the city and its harbor. Upon the top of that hill there is a big block-house. Upon its sides there are Eomichoo KS (GO)