When I
revisited it, San Juan Hill was again a sunny, smiling farm land, the
trenches planted with vegetables, the roofs of the bomb-proofs fallen
in and buried beneath creeping vines, and the barbed-wire
entanglements holding in check only the browsing cattle.
San Juan Hill is not a solitary hill, but the most prominent of a
ridge of hills, with Kettle Hill a quarter of a mile away on the edge
of the jungle and separated from the ridge by a tiny lake. In the
local nomenclature Kettle Hill, which is the name given to it by the
Rough Riders, has always been known as San Juan Hill, with an added
name to distinguish it from the other San Juan Hill of greater
renown.
The days we spent on those hills were so rich in incident and
interest and were filled with moments of such excitement, of such
pride in one's fellow-countrymen, of pity for the hurt and dying, of
laughter and good-fellowship, that one supposed he might return after
even twenty years and recognize every detail of the ground. But a
shorter time has made startling and confusing changes. Now a visitor
will find that not until after several different visits, and by
walking and riding foot by foot over the hills, can he make them fall
into line as he thinks he once knew them.
