I made my way with difficulty through the tangled woods, but had gone nearly a mile before I came to the road. After a cautious survey from my shelter, I stepped out on it, and looking away to the west I saw cultivated hills with teams and people moving about; I also saw the road became two--the right-hand one led away from the coast into the hills, the one to the left continued to skirt the beach. Both roads were well traveled, and I knew I was near the tobacco belt, which is cultivated throughout its entire length, from the Gulf to the Caribbean Sea, for a breadth of twenty miles, its western border touching the province of Pinar del Rio. Forty miles beyond that border the rebels held the town of San Cristoval, but I had made up my mind to follow the coast until I reached the hamlet and harbor of Rio de San Diego, fifty miles south from San Cristoval, then to strike north to the town of Passos, twenty miles west of San Cristoval. Once past San Diego, I would be well within the rebel lines, and could safely show myself, although I determined not to do so voluntarily until I was at Passos. The roundabout way I was traveling doubled the distance, but, aside from getting outside the lines of the Spanish patrols, I was in no particular hurry, and my mode of life was hardening and fitting me for the service in which I was to embark. I counted upon taking ten days, or rather nights, to reach San Diego, and five from there to Passos, where I would make myself known to the rebel chiefs as an American volunteer in the cause of Cuban liberty. And, I thought, what a change of scene for Mr. F. A. Warren. From the Bank of England to a volunteer in a rebel camp in Cuba! [Illustration: MILITARY SUPPRESSING REVOLT OF CONVICTS AT CHATHAM.]