Evening star., 1898-06-30
TRIP TO SANTIAGO
A Famous War Correspondents Ac-
count of the Voyage.
FOLLOWED TIE TRANSPORT FLEET
Phil. Robinson Writes of Beauties
of Sea and Land.
GORGEOUS PEN PICTURES
FOLLOWED TIE TRANSPORT FLEET
GORGEOUS PEN PICTU RES
of the Associated Press.

Copyright 1885, by the Associated Press.)
IN GUANTANAMO HARBOR, Cuba.
June 21.-A boisterous night with nasty
beam wind and a Furnishing sea, and the
Associated Press dispatch beat Wanda
from Kingston came rollicking, like a
petrol. round Point Morant, and heading
almost due north, was making for Sanu-
ago de Cuba.
All of a sudden, up from the deep blue
pillows of the midnight sea there gHstened
along the horizon a coronet of noble Jewels,
necklaces fit for the throat of a queen
diamond, emerald and ruby-the signal
lights of a great squadron of some forty
vessels, rocking under easy steam in the
deep. AS they rolled through the waves
the stars seemed to come down to meet the
Great Bear. his lowest stars swinging just
behind the lamps of the Indiana, the South
ern Cross mingling its bright lights with
the gems that made so beautiful night.
We had CHANGED, by good fortune. upon
the long-expected transport fleet, taking
some 20 600 men to the attack of the south
ern coast of Cuba, escorted by powerful
convoy of men-of-war. Perhaps it is that
the outward and visible signs of war thrill
me more than they do most civilians, per-
haps it is that blood is really thicker than
water" and that looking out upon the noble
constellation of flashing ships feel myself
half an American: anyhow, the fact re-
mains that l feel proud of our common
Anglo-Saxon kinship, and sympathetic ss l
must be with the ruin, the derotta of n ma
ticn of most ancient fame, l gazeo upon
the scene with something warmer. more
enthusiastic. than mere English feelings.
In Sailing Line.
A scouting gunboat, ablaZe with color,
at once discovered US, made friendly prize
of u.s. questioned us and let us go, and till
dawn we lay there in a little yacht. rock
ing on the swell among the great company
of leviathans. At daybreak we watched
them hulkily awaking to life, taking their
places, with monstrous leisureliness. In
the sailing line, and with the flagship
ahead. and warships thrown well out on
either flank, steaming away along the
coast to the eastward toward Guantanamo.
How empty the sea seemed without these
behemoths. black and gray! How terri
bly, significant of speed and power those
wisps of ugly smoke below the horizon.
And meanwhile we We're steering to the
westward. and with the stately line of the
squadron always on our right, far away,
approached st. Jago de Cuba
A sharp tropical squall caught US as We
went. pelting us with rain drops as keen
and sharp as hail stones and ermining all
the black sea with points of silver. But
we ran through it very soon, and as the
rising sun caught the rain-laden air I saw
for the first time the beautiful phenome-
non of double rainbow One arch started
so it seemed, from our very keel and span
ned only the few miles of sea between us
I>o fh1,r
Iris flung out her longest brightest, broad
est riband the one end dipped in the sea
somewhere on the farther side of the scene
and the other was lost beyond the blue
haze of the Cuban hills. And thus it was
that l first saw the Morro of St. Jago un-
der the arches of the rainbows.
MORO Castle.
There are those who have written of this
fine old Rhine castle in the Caribbean sea
in contemptuous scorn. not merely as
fortress, unsuited, by the misfortune of its
antiquity, to oppose the scientific terrors
of modern offense, but as a building no
longer "of any to anybody" l cannot
understand the tone of mind that, even
under the distorting stress of war, can
write like this in the public press of so
picturesque and, to America, so precious a
building. Granted it is no fort, it is a thing
of beauty, graced with reverend antiq-
uity. The squadron should spare it If they
can. There is nothing to be ashamed OF
In respect for an old past nor in the sem
timent of reverence. Compare it with the
brutal objects. denominations of machinery
and steel, ungainly in the very fullness OF
their power, the ugly battle ships and ug
lier monitors, unlovey scows dynamite
craft. torpedo boats and converted COL
liers'-a wicked-looking congregation OF
ifetakers-compare these with the gentle
contours Of the old Moro, so pathetic in
the rays of the setting sun. 1t Is like COM
pairing the beautiful rounded wreaths of
steam that curl and float away behind a
railway train with the odious angularity
of the cars and engines that go racing for
ward.
The coast line round st. Jago is re-
splendent, the rocky hills have a rough
fleece of scrub which Is patched as If with
mango, showing bare leprous spots of rud-
dy under-earth. We pass the noble-lool-
ing old fort, perched like the eyrie of some
madiaeval robber baron upon the cres. and
brow of the crags and trailing its lower
levels of donjon-keep in the waters of the
bay, to Juragua, where iron mines were
worked before the war;
The UninviHng Shore.
The white cottages Of the miners still
stand dotted about among the uninviting
bills or scattered along the beach, a shore
most uninviting to eyes accustomed to the
more comfortable outlines of Europe and
lamentable By contrast with the wealth of
beauty, the superb contours of Jamaica
But soon the coast alters. The mountains.
lying back from the sea, send down about
their feet softly undulating lines of hills
gentle heralds, as it were, Of the sterner
upper heights. ard the foreshore is broken
into outlining ramparts, the first line of
defense" of the imperial hills behind,
rounded knobs. great cushions of green
upon coral stands. Half islands they seem