“We had to ford ... a fast flowing torrent set down in a gorge ... which had no path leading to a crossing of any kind,” 82 “Digging to obtain a footing for the wheels in the roughest ravines,” 90 “At last we found the promised highway,” 100 “The oldest cathedral in Cuba, weatherbeaten, but proudly rising over the low tiled houses of the town,” 100 PREFACE Occasionally business has experiences which are interesting on their own account. To set them down in words is an agreeable task and entirely different from the making of business literature of the familiar kinds. This narrative is just the relation of what happened, when, on other business bent, we strayed into the unknown and stayed to have a motoring experience, which was far enough from the conventional to deserve a place in the realm of adventure. The tale is here recounted in the hope that it will possess for others a degree of the interest which, for ourselves, has made it a substantial part of our recollections. Most of all, ye unworthy scribe hopes that the narration will be acceptable to those who made it possible—to Sidney D. Waldon, father of the great idea and leading spirit of the enterprise resulting therefrom, Edwin S. George, Fred Crebbin and Rogelio Gaarken. E. R. E. Detroit, April, 1909. [Illustration: “_Once in a while a good sort of winding dirt road gave promise of speed._” SEE PAGE 20.] [Illustration] CHAPTER I _Direct not him, whose way himself will choose;_ _’Tis breath thou lack’st, and that breath wilt thou lose._ —Richard II. [Illustration] Red and vivid against the dense night, a camp fire of palm bark flared, fluttered, and went out. Its momentary glare illumined one of those strange scenes, occasioned by strange people being marooned in a strange place. The rest of the world, which seemed very far away, was shut out, on the one side, by a reef of palm trees sharply silhouetted against the somber sky and, on the other, by a barrier of hills. “Are we up against it?” Crebbin spoke. “If you mean by ‘it’ that hill yonder, we are.” Waldon answered.