As the day advanced, the number of men and children who crowded about the steamer watching for opportunities to pilfer or pick up food became so great that it was necessary to clear the pier and put a guard of soldiers there to exclude the public altogether. Then the hungry people formed in a dense mass in the street opposite the steamer, and stood there in the blazing sunshine for hours, watching the little flat-cars loaded with provisions as they were rolled past to the warehouse. From an English cable-operator, who came down to the pier, we learned that for weeks there had been nothing in the city to eat except rice, and that the supply even of that was limited. Hard-bread crackers had sold as high as one dollar apiece and canned meat at four dollars a can, and many well-to-do families had not tasted bread, meat, or milk in more than a month.
Although there was said to be little or no yellow fever in Santiago, the captain of the _State of Texas_ decided to quarantine the steamer against the shore, and gave notice to all on board that if any person left the ship he could not return to it. This made going ashore a serious matter, because there was virtually nothing to eat in the city, and no place for a stranger to stay, and if one cut loose from the steamer he might find himself without shelter and without any means whatever of subsistence. We had on board, fortunately, a young American named Elwell, who had lived several years in Santiago, and was well acquainted not only with its resources, but with a large number of its citizens. He said that there was a club there known as the Anglo-American Club, organized and supported by the foreign merchants of the city and the English cable-operators. Of this club he was one of the organizers and charter members, and although it had been closed during the blockade and siege, it would probably be reopened at once, and with an introduction from him I could get a room in it. He doubted whether the steward could give me anything to eat, but I could take food enough with me to last for a day or two, and as soon as possible arrangements would be made to supply the club with provisions from the _State of Texas_. Encouraged by this statement of the possibilities, I decided on Tuesday morning to abandon the steamer and trust myself to the tender mercies of the city and the Anglo-American Club. Hastily packing up a couple of hand-bags, and hiring a ragged, dirty Cuban to carry them and act in the capacity of guide, I left the ship, elbowed my way through the crowd of people at the head of the pier, and entered one of the narrow, ill-paved, and incredibly dirty streets which lead upward from the water-front to the higher part of the city.