These stories show how little reason there is to speak of these skirmishes as battles, and it also throws some light on the Spaniard's idea of his own marksmanship. As a plain statement of fact, and without any exaggeration, one of the chief reasons why half the insurgents in Cuba are not dead to-day is because the Spanish soldiers cannot shoot well enough to hit them. The Mauser rifle, which is used by all the Spanish soldiers, with the exception of the Guardia Civile, is a most excellent weapon for those who like clean, gentlemanly warfare, in which the object is to wound or to kill outright, and not to "shock" the enemy nor to tear his flesh in pieces. The weapon has hardly any trajectory up to one thousand yards, but, in spite of its precision, it is as useless in the hands of a guerrilla or the average Spanish soldier as a bow and arrow would be. The fact that when the Spaniards say "within gun fire of the forts" they mean within one hundred and fifty yards of them shows how they estimate their own skill. Major Grover Flint, the _Journal_ correspondent, told me of a fight that he witnessed in which the Spaniards fired two thousand rounds at forty insurgents only two hundred yards away, and only succeeded in wounding three of them. Sylvester Scovel once explained this bad marksmanship to me by pointing out that to shift the cartridge in a Mauser, it is necessary to hold the rifle at an almost perpendicular angle, and close up under the shoulder. After the fresh cartridge has gone home the temptation to bring the butt to the shoulder before the barrel is level is too great for the Spanish Tommy, and, in his excitement, he fires most of his ammunition in the air over the heads of the enemy. He also fires so recklessly and rapidly that his gun often becomes too hot for him to handle it properly, and it is not an unusual sight to see him rest the butt on the ground and pull the trigger while the gun is in that position. On the whole, the Spanish soldiers during this war in Cuba have contributed little to the information of those who are interested in military science. The tactics which the officers follow are those which were found effective at the battle of Waterloo, and in the Peninsular campaign. When attacked from an ambush a Spanish column forms at once into a hollow square, with the cavalry in the centre, and the firing is done in platoons. They know nothing of "open order," or of firing in skirmish line. If the Cubans were only a little better marksmen than their enemies they should, with such a target as a square furnishes them, kill about ten men where they now wound one. With the war conducted under the conditions described here, there does not seem to be much promise of its coming to any immediate end unless some power will interfere. The Spaniards will probably continue to remain inside their forts, and the officers will continue to pay themselves well out of the rebellion.