On way to Key West.
December 19, 1896.
[DEAR MOTHER:]
I hope you won't be cross with me for going off and not
letting you know, but I thought it was better
to do it that way as there was such delay in our getting
started. I am going to Cuba by way of Key West with Frederic
Remington and Michaelson, a correspondent who has been there
for six months. We are to be taken by the
Vamoose the
fastest steam yacht made to Santa Clara province where the
Cubans will meet us and take us to Gomez. We will stay a
month with him, the yacht calling for copy and sketches once a
week, and finally for us in a month. I get all my expenses
and
The Journal pays me $3,000 for the month's work. The
Harper's Magazine also takes a story at six hundred
dollars
and Russell will reprint Remington's sketches and my story in
book form, so I shall probably clear $4,000 in the next month
or six weeks. I was a week in getting information on the
subject so I know all about it from the men who have just been
there and I want you to pay attention to what I tell you they
told me and not to listen to any stray visitor who comes in
for tea and talks without any tact or knowledge. There is no
danger in the trip except the problem of getting there and
getting away again, and that is now removed by
The
Journal's
yacht. I would have gone earlier had any of the periodicals
that asked me to go shown me any way to get there —
There is
no fever this time of year and as you know fever never
touches me. It got all the others in Central America and
never worried me at all. There is no danger of getting shot,
as the province into which we go, the Santa Clara province, is
owned and populated and patrolled by the Cubans. It is no
more Spanish than New Jersey and the Spaniards cannot get in
there. We have the strongest possible letters from the Junta,
and I have from Lamont, Bayard and Olney and credentials in
every language. We will
sit around the Gomez camp and send messengers back to the
coast. It is a three days trip and as Gomez may be moving
from place to place you may not hear from us for a month and
we may not hear from you but remember it was a much longer
time than that before you heard from me when I went to
Honduras. Also keep in mind that I am going as a
correspondent only and must keep out of the way of fighting
and that I mean to do so, as Chamberlain says we want
descriptive stories not brave deeds — Major Flint who has
arranged the trip for us was down there with Maceo as a
correspondent. He saw six fights and never shot off his gun
once because as he said it was not his business to kill people
and he has persuaded me that he is right, so I won't do
anything but look on — I have bought at
The Journal's
expense a fifty dollar field glass which is a new invention
and the best made. I have marked it so that you can see a man
five miles off and as soon as I see him I mean to begin to
ride or run the other way — no one loves himself more than I do
so you leave me to take care of myself. I wish I could give
you any idea of the contempt the four returned correspondents
who talked to me, have for the Spaniards. They have seen them
shoot 2,500 rounds without hitting men at 200 yards and they
run away if the enemy begins on them first. However, you
trust to Richard — We have a fine escort arranged for us and
Michaelson speaks Spanish perfectly and has been six months
scouting over the country.
DICK.
