The Return Home 207 



trained to charge in any kind of line, and we made 

 ii[) our minds to devote our time to this. Dis- 

 mounted work with the rifle we already felt thor- 

 oughly competent to perform. 



My time was still much occupied with looking 

 after the health of my brigade, but the fact that we 

 were going home, where I knew that their health 

 would improve, lightened my mind, and I was able 

 thoroughly to enjoy the beauty of the country, and 

 even of the storms, which hitherto I had regarded 

 purely as enemies. 



The surroundings of the city of Santiago are very 

 grand. The circling mountains rise sheer and high. 

 The plains are threaded by rapid winding brooks 

 and are dotted here and there with quaint villages, 

 curiously picturesque from their combining traces 

 of an outworn old-world civilization with new and 

 raw barbarism. The tall, graceful, feathery bam- 

 boos rise by the water's edge, and elsewhere, even 

 on the mountain-crests, where the soil is wet and 

 rank enough; and the splendid royal palms and co- 

 coanut palms tower high above the matted green 

 jungle. 



Generally the thunder-storms came in the after- 

 noon, but once I saw one at sunrise, driving down 

 the high mountain valleys toward us. It was a very 

 beautiful and almost terrible sight ; for the sun rose 

 behind the storm, and shone through the gusty 



