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How Wireless Came to Cuba
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enabled me to form an idea of the difficulties I would have in a country whose language I didn't know and where buying facilities were very inadequate. My stay there was during the celebration of the first Cuban Independence Day, which resembled our own Fourth of July. The city was full of natives from all over the island, and when the train left Havana that evening I was mixed in with the most motley lot of passengers I ever met. I was the only white man.
A great quantity of wire, instruments, etc. had been shipped to me at Havana from New York. Having been forewarned of the advisability of not checking this material as baggage or shipping it via express on account of the unreliability and slowness of these methods, I decided to take it all in the car with me. As a result, my seat in the socalled, "sleeper," resembled a baggage car.
EN ROUTE TO GUANTANAMO
THE train dragged along slowly all night and seemed to stop at every sugar plantation. In the morning we stopped thirty
minutes at a town for breakfast which was served in a large room adjoining the depot. The passengers swarmed in there like a lot of cattle. There were no chairs, just long benches to sit on. Everybody grabbed, and so did I. They all talked Spanish, and they all talked at once. I was the only American in the crowd. The only Spanish I knew was "agua" but as they did not have any water, this oneword proficiency in the language was useless. Everybody was drinking wine, so I drank it, too, the while I sat in amaze as I watched the others empty glass after glass until they were stopped only by the call that the train was ready to move on.
At each station I hoped that some one would come aboard who could speak English. But all that I heard from the new passengers as well as the old, was Spanish. During the stop for lunch I was sitting rather disconsolate by myself when I noticed a dapper young Cuban army officer, who had, apparently, been to Havana for the recent celebration. He appeared very popular with the entire crowd. Just before leaving the station to board the
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DOC DE FOREST TO MR. BUTLER
The postal card was mailed in St. Louis on June 14, 1905. He writes: "To the brave boys who run naked and fight pulgas and other obstructions in the place called Guantanamo (Spanish for h-1) Better pull in a few msgs. [messages] from Key West and you will receive a pair of gold garters — no blanks — cheer up— Doc." And along the side: '"Ahoy there on board the Ampbitrite — Doc sends his compliments'" The pulgas are small insects, almost invisible. They swarmed about the station in clouds, and their bite, while not poisonous, was very annoying. Since these insects chose to hover under clothing, the radio pioneers at Guantanamo often took the easiest way and removed most of theirs, hence Dr. De Forest's remark about
the "boys who run naked"