I was at Santiago the other day with Colonel Dick.  We called on General Shafter and had a very nice chat with him.  He showed us a message from the Secretary of War directing that the Eighth Ohio be closely isolated for a period of ten days and if at the end of that time no yellow fever appears in our ranks we are to be put on transports and sent away from here.

Santiago is a queer place.  We approached the city along the road that passes by our camp.  The street was narrow—­not more than twenty-five or thirty feet wide—­not wider than the paved portion of the street in front of our house.  Many are much narrower—­mere alleys in fact—­but people living all along them.  Across the streets trenches had been dug by the Spanish troops and barbed wire netting in front of the trenches.  There were many trenches, showing what preparation they had made for a desperate resistance to our advance.  The houses are nearly all one-story and have brick or stone floors.  Few have wood floors and all seem dirty.  No glass is used in the windows, and very little window glass is seen in the city.  The window openings are grated on the outside and have a sort of portiere or wooden shutters on the inside.  The streets are not straight, but wind and turn until one loses the points of the compass.  The houses are built out even with the streets, no front yards and no spaces between the houses.  Houses are mostly covered on the outside walls with plaster and roofs of red tile.  The city is very old and the houses show it.  We went into the cathedral, an old building.  They rang the bells and rang them again, but so far as we could see no one came to worship.  The janitors and priests lounged about—­the latter saluted us.  We strolled all about the interior of the structure with our spurs on our boots and wearing cartridge belts and revolvers.  The American soldier goes about where he pleases in the city.  Of course we recognized the character of the building and removed our hats when we went in.  The interior was adorned like most Catholic churches, with pictures and altars and other regalia of the Catholic service.  Quite a nice picture of the Virgin appears in the ceiling, and a number of good pictures are found about the walls.  We also went into the “palace,” now used as General Shafter’s headquarters.  It is one of the best buildings in the city, but doesn’t compare with the more ordinary public buildings in our country.  There are no street cars—­few, if any electric lights, and the surface of many streets is so rough and uneven that you can have no conception of them.  The few that are better than others are paved with cobblestones, but these are few.  Most streets are full of loose stones and not paved, and little, if any, pretense at grading.  The dirt lies in the streets and side streets are filthy.  In fact, it looked to me like the greater the stink the better the people like it.  My sense of smell was too acute to relish it.  Our troops have gathered