He very seldom travels in Cuba at all, because he is not
often there. Consequently the roads in Cuba, as a rule, are merely
small paths sufficient for the native to walk along, and they carry
the machete in order to open a path if necessary. These low places in
the valleys were full of miasmatic odors, yellow fever, agues, and all
the ills that usually pertain to the West Indian climate.
At other places the road ran along the tops of the foot-hills from one
to two hundred feet higher than the bottom of these valleys. Here the
country was much more open. The path was usually wide enough for the
guns to move with comparative ease. Sometimes one wagon could pass
another easily. These parts of the road were usually more or less
strewn with boulders. The road was rarely level and frequently the
upland parts were washed out. Sometimes it was only the boulder-clad
bottom of a ravine; again the water would have washed out the gully on
one side so deep as to threaten overturning the guns. The portions of
the road between the valleys and the top of these foot-hills were the
worst places the detachment had to pass. These ascents and descents
were nearly always steep. While not at all difficult for the man upon
horseback or for the man on foot, they were frequently almost too
steep for draft, and they were always washed out.
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