48 The Rough Riders 



Bowie, and their famous band of frontier heroes. 

 All of us had worked hard, so that we had had no 

 time to be homesick or downcast ; but we were glad 

 to leave the hot camp, where every day the strong 

 wind sifted the dust through everything, and to 

 start for the gathering-place of the army which was 

 to invade Cuba. Our horses and men were getting 

 into good shape. We were well enough equipped to 

 warrant our starting on the campaign, and every 

 man was filled with dread of being out of the fight- 

 ing. We had a pack-train of. 150 mules, so we had 

 close on to 1,200 animals to carry. 



Of course, our train was split up into sections, 

 seven, all told ; Colonel Wood commanding the first 

 three, and I the last four. The journey by rail 

 from San Antonio to Tampa took just four days, 

 and I doubt if anybody who was on the trip will soon 

 forget it. To occupy my few spare moments, I 

 was reading M. Demolins's "Superiorite des Anglo- 

 Saxons." M. Demolins, in giving the reasons why 

 the English-speaking peoples are superior to those 

 of Continental Europe, lays much stress upon the 

 way in which "militarism" deadens the power of 

 individual initiative, the soldier being trained to com- 

 plete suppression of individual will, while his facul- 

 ties become atrophied in consequence of his being 

 merely a cog in a vast and perfectly ordered ma- 

 chine. I can assure the excellent French publicist 



