Early the next year General Wood sought a well earned rest in a brief visit to his former home in Boston, leaving, as he thought, affairs in Santiago in a securely satisfactory condition. But he was compelled to hasten back in July, 1899, to deal with another outbreak of disease. On his arrival he found both the city and his own army camp in the grip of malignant yellow fever. It was a time for heroic action, and that was what he performed. In a day he removed his troops to healthful places on the adjacent hills, and then subjected the city to such a cleansing and scientific sanitation as neither it nor any other Cuban city had ever known. The island and the world looked on with interest, to see if thus he could cope with and suppress the epidemic. He succeeded. Not yet had the theory of Dr. Carlos J. Finlay, that mosquitoes were the sole propagators of the disease, been practically tested and applied, though it had been propounded by that eminent Cuban physician many years before. That immortal achievement was postponed for Messrs. Reed, Carroll, Agramonte and Lazear to effect, under General Wood's subsequent administration at Havana. But even without it, by means of strenuous sanitation, the epidemic of July, 1899, was conquered, and Santiago was made clean and sound. Another achievement of General Wood's at Santiago in the latter part of 1898 proved highly successful and was soon afterward extended to the other provinces of the island. This was the organization of the Rural Guards, a force which became invaluable for the policing of the rural portions of the island; just as Pennsylvania and some others of the United States are cared for by State Police. General Wood selected for this service officers and soldiers of the Cuban Army in the War of Independence who were recommended for their good character and efficiency. By the end of the year 1898 he had about 300 of these troopers patrolling the roads of Oriente, in the districts where such guardianship was most needed, with admirable results. The value of this service was observed and appreciated by the officers of the other provinces, and at the beginning of 1899 the system was introduced into all the provinces excepting Matanzas, where the same purpose was served by a mounted police force maintained by the larger municipalities. In the city of Havana the Military Governor, General Ludlow, held a conference with General Mario G. Menocal, of the Cuban Army, who had been invited to become Chief of Police in that city under the American administration, and with him worked out the details of the organization of Rural Guards in the suburbs of the capital and the rural portions of Havana Province. They formed a force of 350 men for service there, and thus quickly made all that region, even in the more or less disturbed period immediately following the war, noteworthy for its security and orderliness. When at the end of the American occupation the Rural Guards