_Does the road wind up-hill all the way?_ _Yes, to the very end._ _Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?_ _From morn to night, my friend._ —Christina Rossetti. [Illustration] Camajuani is not well known. We never had heard of it until Tuesday, January 7, 1908. By noon of the same day we found that there was no place which we wished to reach quite so badly as Camajuani. We wanted to go to a lot of other places, but, to reach any of them, we had to go via Camajuani. We had driven ourselves into a predicament just because we had followed the advice of one Fernandez, urbane landlord of the Santa Clara Hotel. We were bound southeastward from Santa Clara, through Placetas. Camajuani is northeast of Santa Clara. Señor Fernandez said that it was necessary to go through Camajuani to reach Placetas. We believed him. He also told us that the heavy rain, which almost obscured the rugged mountain range ahead of us, would not continue. Again we believed him, although, as we eyed the morning prospect, it did not look promising to us. At noon it continued to rain. Northern rains of our previous experience had been mere sprinkles in comparison with this tropical downpour. We had come six or seven miles. There was no use in going back, because that was just as hard as going ahead. Without sun, compass, highway, or guide of any kind, we were not much surer of the location of Santa Clara than we were of the whereabouts of the much-sought Camajuani. It was a rough, wet country, looking as though nature had dumped here everything left over when she tired of molding the rest of Cuba into shape. Rivers and creeks were at the bottom of each red dirt hill, now soaked into muggy slime in which the protruding rocks made every inch of the way a precarious, uncertain struggle. As the hills became higher and the gorges became deeper, we came closer to the great ravines of the Santa Fe mountain passes. The country was rougher than any we had yet tackled. The only road we had to follow was the rough irregular trillo, or pony trail, across the hills, by way of the innumerable ravines, washouts, and river beds. The first few miles out of Santa Clara were over a fairly good macadam road, which gradually dissolved into a soggy trail of wet clay. The first tire to go that day exploded while we were wallowing through the deep mud in the lee of a ruined Spanish fort. Rogelio, being energetic and just as keen for accomplishment as the rest of us, volunteered to replace this tire. On several occasions he had wished to help us in changing the inner tubes or casings. Not wishing to shirk our own work, however, we spared Rogelio and saved him for the pump. Also, on many occasions we carefully conserved his energy for frequent little skits with the machete, which he handled nicely.