This
being the rainy season, the trails were soft, and where the rich
red Cuban soil was exposed the travelers sank into it as into wet
putty.
Crossing a rocky ridge, O'Reilly and his guide at last emerged
upon an open slope, knee-high in grass and grown up to bottle-
palms, those queer, distorted trees whose trunks are swollen into
the likeness of earthen water-jars. Scattered here and there over
the meadows were the dead or fallen trunks of another variety, the
cabbage-palm, the green heart of which had long formed a staple
article of diet for the Insurrectos. Spanish axes had been at work
here and not a single tree remained alive. The green floor of the
valley farther down was dotted with the other, the royal kind,
that monarch of tropic vegetation which lends to the Cuban
landscape its peculiar and distinctive beauty.
"Yonder is the camino," said the countryman, pointing into the
valley; "it will lead you to the main road; and there"--he turned
to the northward--"is Matanzas. Go with God, and don't drink the
well water, which is polluted from the rains." With a smile and a
wave of the hand the man turned back and plunged into the jungle.
As O'Reilly descended the slope he realized keenly that he was
alone and in hostile territory. The hills and the woods from Pinar
del Rio to Oriente were Cuban, or, at most, they were disputed
ground.
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