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44 Marching with Gomez mounted on all sorts of beasts, small donkeys, even mares in foal, and with feeble-limbed little colts neighing and scampering after them. One negro wore an antique Spanish dragoon sabre attached to his waist by twine, and a single gilt spur tied over his bare instep, with which he constantly goaded his horse to greater exertions by an upward jerk of the knee. A rear-guard of fifty more armados ended the procession. The rest of the force explored the country for a league ahead as scouts, or rode the fields to right and left of the column as flankers, foraging in potato patches and leading off horses on lariats wherever they found them. The force, as usual, had marched on an empty stomach, but sugar-canes cut on the way made a frequent and refreshing " long breakfast." As we journeyed along, dead horses by the roadside, gaps torn in the yellow limestone walls, chips and scars on trunks of trees, marked scenes of long retreats-and frequent skirmishes. Vultures floated lazily over the pastures or watched us from fence and gate post with sleek indifference. The frequent banquets of the war had dulled their appetite. One noticed that the houses of all who could allowed to march with us, until they could be left in some comparatively safe camp in the swamps of the south shore. Later, west of the Hanabana river, near Coco- drillos, I met a party of three hundred refugees, the overflow of Matanzas impedimenta. They were marching on foot from the swamps, which a scarcity of wild pigs and the first floods of the rainy season had rendered uninhabitable for so great a number together, toward the forest-clad highlands of the interior, where they hoped to survive the summer. Nearly all these men were negroes, naked, destitute, — not half a dozen revolvers or fifty good machetes among them. Even their officers, two mulatto lieutenants, looked discouraged. With proper arms, this mob might have become a formidable force.
Title | Marching with Gomez |
Creator | Flint, Grover |
Publisher | Lamson, Wolffe and company |
Place of Publication | Boston, New York [etc.] |
Date | 1898 |
Language | eng |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Title | 00000079 |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Transcript | 44 Marching with Gomez mounted on all sorts of beasts, small donkeys, even mares in foal, and with feeble-limbed little colts neighing and scampering after them. One negro wore an antique Spanish dragoon sabre attached to his waist by twine, and a single gilt spur tied over his bare instep, with which he constantly goaded his horse to greater exertions by an upward jerk of the knee. A rear-guard of fifty more armados ended the procession. The rest of the force explored the country for a league ahead as scouts, or rode the fields to right and left of the column as flankers, foraging in potato patches and leading off horses on lariats wherever they found them. The force, as usual, had marched on an empty stomach, but sugar-canes cut on the way made a frequent and refreshing " long breakfast." As we journeyed along, dead horses by the roadside, gaps torn in the yellow limestone walls, chips and scars on trunks of trees, marked scenes of long retreats-and frequent skirmishes. Vultures floated lazily over the pastures or watched us from fence and gate post with sleek indifference. The frequent banquets of the war had dulled their appetite. One noticed that the houses of all who could allowed to march with us, until they could be left in some comparatively safe camp in the swamps of the south shore. Later, west of the Hanabana river, near Coco- drillos, I met a party of three hundred refugees, the overflow of Matanzas impedimenta. They were marching on foot from the swamps, which a scarcity of wild pigs and the first floods of the rainy season had rendered uninhabitable for so great a number together, toward the forest-clad highlands of the interior, where they hoped to survive the summer. Nearly all these men were negroes, naked, destitute, — not half a dozen revolvers or fifty good machetes among them. Even their officers, two mulatto lieutenants, looked discouraged. With proper arms, this mob might have become a formidable force. |
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