Troops were rushed into these places on special trains and camped on
available sites, pending the organization of a proposed expedition
to--somewhere. Supplies of every description came pouring in on long
trains of express and freight cars; mounted officers and orderlies
ploughed their rushing way through great heaps and dunes of
ever-shifting sand, leaving behind them stifling clouds of
scintillating particles, which filtered through every conceivable
crevice and made the effort to breathe a suffocating nightmare. Over
all the tumultuous scene a torrid sun beat down from a cloudless sky,
while its scorching rays, reflected from the fierce sand under foot,
produced a heat so intolerable that even the tropical vegetation
looked withered and dying. In this climate officers and men, gathered
mostly from Northern posts, were to "acclimate" themselves for a
tropical campaign--somewhere.
[Illustration: Skirmish Drill at Tampa.]
They never encountered as deadly a heat, nor a more pernicious
climate, in Cuba nor in Porto Rico, than that of southern Florida. Its
first effect upon men just emerging from a bracing Northern winter was
akin to prostration. Then began to follow a decided tendency to
languor; after this one was liable to sudden attacks of bowel
troubles.
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