The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-19
PORT ROYAL TO MARIANA
Il NORTHWESTERLYC c o URsE 4 CROSS
 THE CARIBBEAN SEA.

The Southern Coast of Cuba-Isle Del Pinas -Progreso, the Port of Yucatan
 Around Cape San Antonio to the Cuban Capital.
 Special Correspondence of the Journal and
 Courler.)
 Havana, Cuba, Nov. 9.-One who has never witnessed a sunset in tropical wa ters may be said to have lived almost in vain. There is no use trying to de- scribe 1.-the crimson and gold, green amethyst, purple and sapphire reflected in varying tints on sea and shore, on sails and hills, in wonderful but brief pyrotechnics. I have seen hard-headed business men, as void of sentiment as the cattle and crops, the ores and ma chimes they have, come down here to Invest their money in "gush" like school girls under the glamour of the western skies and drop into poetry with Wegg- like facility anent the dying day and twilight, letting her curtain down and pinnng it with star.
 The trouble with twilight in these re- gons is that she lets the curtain down too quickly, as if it went on roller springs. Those who love the northern gloaming miss that shadowy hour of dreams and fancies.
 Here the sun makes no preliminary arrangements for retiring; he wraps his gorgeous cloak about him and leaps into bed: and then the face of nature changes as suddenly and completely as the prompter's bell rings up the cur tain on a theatrical transformation scene.
 Our steamer left Port Royal at sun set; and hardly had we time to note the messy roofs and towers of that shabby town, all gilded in the evening light, be- fore the picture faded and old ocean be- came indeed gray and melancholy waste" It is worth coming far to watch the stars blaze out in the tropic night There seem to be three times as many as are seen in the skies at home all larger and brighter, not twinkling as in colder climates, but shedding soft and steady illumination. And then the mysterious, far-reaching milky way; and the literally golden" moon swing ing nearer to earth here than else where! Among the unfamiliar constel- lations is the Southern Cross, lying prone upon the horizon at dusk and slowly mounting the heavens till mid night, when it leans directly overhead. It requires considerable imagination, however, to bring it's irregular cluster of stars into a resemblance of the Chris tian emblem. Travellers new to the lands over which it hangs always look :. out anxiously for it, but are unable to find it without assistance; and are inva- riably disappointed in 1t on first ac- quaintance The truth is that although so much of romance has clung for cen- turies around the Southern Cross. which led the Conqustadores to their friumphs and atrocities, it cannot hold candle to Orion, the Pleiades, or the homely Big aDipper, it's only redeen1ing trait being that it guides navigatcrs in one quarter of the globe as the north star does in another. In reality it is no cross at all, or, at most, a maimed and 1op-sided one, minus head and arm. But somehow the constellation beloved of Mariners grows on one's fancy; like the sleepy trade-w1nds that fan the heated brow; like the taste for agua- cates, mangoes and other insipid tropi- cal fruits; like the phosphorescent ignss fatus gleaming at night on the southern seas and turing one to sit on deck till the small hours of the morning. AS the so-called cross gradually assumes an upright position, pointing its tip 10 s the two prominent stars in Centaurus, one recalls the sweet story of Paul and Virginia and remembers the words of the venerable priest: "Ill est tarde, il est minut; la Croix dusud est droit sur l'horizon."
 The main course from Jamaica to Ha- vana lies in northwesterly direction across the Caribbean sea, with several ports of call en route. First, almost due to Santiago, at which point did not land this time, retaining too vivid recollections of the fever recently en- countered there Through the yellow haze of a tropic morning we saw again the apparently unbroken wall of the Sierra Maestro; and at length the his- torc gap was disclosed-just wide enough to admit an ocean-liner. The wonder is that Cervera's seven-thou- sand-ton cruisers ever managed to wriggle through the twisting neck of that bottlel The shallow water at the entrance of the sinuous channel does not conceal a sand-bar, but a living, growing barricade of coral rock, re- uuiring the most careful piloting 10 pass in safety. Doubtless the day IS at hand when Yankee engineering will render the broad, deep bay beyond as accessible as it is now one of the inast harbors III the hemisphere.
 Having successfully squeezed be- tween the Scylla and Caryddis of Soca- pa headland and the ruined Moro Cas- tie, we passed the place that lately knew the Riena Mercedes, and what is left of Hobson's Merrimac, now swung round clear of the channel and made fast to shore It is significant of Amer icau occupation that already zeal ous relic-hunters have carried off pret- ty much all the Merrimac, bit by bit, and distributed it over the United States. Even from the deck of ves- sel anchored in the harbor one can dis cern marked improvement in Santia- 20 under the new regime. Sickening odors are no more waited out on the wings of the wind; fewer carron birds Yshn nd he