The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-05-27

this antique, Moorish- looking strong hold, with it's crumbling, honey -combed battlements, queer little flanlfing tur- rets and shadowy towers, perched upon the face of dun-colored cliff one hun dred and fifty feet high--so old, so odd, so different from anything in America with which to compare it. A photo graph or pencil sketch is not much bet ter, and even 0 paint brush could not reproduce the exact shadings of it's time worn weather -melloWed walls; the Ori- ental pinks and old blues and predomi- mating yellows that give 1t half it's charm upon the lowermost wall, di- rectly overhanging the sea, is a dome shaped sentry box of stone, flanked by anticipated cannon. Above 1t the lines of masonry are sharply drawn, each guarded terrace receding upon the one next higher, all set with cannon and dominated by a massive tower Of obsolete construction. It takes good while to see it all, for new stories and stairways, wings and terraces are con- stantly cropping out in unexpected places, but as it occupies three sides of the rounding cliff and the pilot who comes aboard at the entrance to the channel, guides youri steamer close up under the frouning battlements, you have ample time to study it. Window holes cut into the rocks in all directions show how extensive are the excaVa- tions A large garrison is always quar- tered here, even in time of peace, when their sole business is searching for shady places along the walls against (Which to lean. There are ranges above ranges of walk connected by stairWays cut into the solid rock, each range cov- cred with lolling soldiers. You pass so near that you can hear them chattering together. Those on the t,opmast para pet, dangling their blue Woolen legs over are so high and so directly over
 head that they remind you flies on the ceiling. In various places small nitches have been excavted ill the cliff, some with crucifiXes, or figures of saints. In
 other places the bare, unbroken wall Of rock runs up, sheer and straight hun
 dred feet. Below, on the ocean side, are canvas, deep, dark and unc3nny, worn
 deep into the rock. Some of them are
 so extensive that they hava not been explored for generations. Ishe broad and lofty entrances to one of them, hol-
 lowed by the encroaching sea, ds as per- feet an arch as could be drawn by a
 skillful architect, and with it tradi-
 tion is connected which dates back a
 couple of centuries. A story or two
 above these nave-eaten caverns are
 many small windows, each heavily
 barred with iron. They are dungeons,
 dug into the solid rock, and over them
 might well be written, 'Leave hope be-
 hind ye who enter here?" A crowd of
 haggard, pallod faces are pressed
 against the bars; and as you steam
 slowly by so close that you might
 speak to the wrethched prisoners, it
 seems as if shadow had suddenly
 fallen upon the bright sunshine, and a
 chill, like that of coming death, op-
 presses the heart, Since time out of
 mind, the Moro of Santiago has fttrn- ished dungeons for those who have 1in-
 cured the displeasure of the govern
 ment infinitely more to be dreaded than its namesake in Havana. Spain, whose
 political existence on this side of the
 Atlantic has long been sustained only
 by cruelty and oppression, has shown
 no mercy toward those whose hands and voices have been lifted in freedom s
 causes Had these slimy walls tongue
 what stories they might reveal of crime
 and suffering, of tortures noblely un-
 dergone, of death prolonged through
 dragging years and murders that will
 not tout" until the Judgment day.
 Against that old tower, a quarter of a
 century ago our countrymen of the
 'Virginius" were butchered like sheep. | Scores of later patroits have been led out upon the ramparts and shot, their bodies-perhaps with life yet in them, falling into the sea, where they were snapped up by sharks as soon as they touched the water.
 The narrow, winding channel which leads from the open sea into the har- bor, pursues it's sinuous course past l several other fortifications of quaint | construction, but of little use against modern guns-betWeen low hills and broad meadows, fishing flamlets and eocoanut groves. Presently you turn a , sharp angle in the hills and enter a 1 broad, land-locked bay, enclosed on ev- cry side by ranges of hills with numer-
 ous points and promontories jutting
 into the tranquil water, leaving deep | little coves behind them, all fringed with cocoa-palrns. Between this blue bay and towering back ground of purple mountains, lies the city which Diego Velazquez, it's founder, christen- | ed in honor of the patron saint of | Spain, as far back as the year 1514. It is l the oldest standing city in the new | world, excepting Santo Domingo, which Columbus himself established only eighteen years earlier. By the way, | San Jago, San Diego, and Santiago, are really the same name rendered Saint l James in onr language; and wherever 1 the Spaniards have been, are numbers of them. This particular city of Saint | James occupies a sloping hillside, 600
 miles southeast from Havana, itself l the capital of department, and ranks the third city of Cuba in commercial mportance-Metanzas being second. As usual in all these southern ports, the
 water is too shallow for large vessels to approach the dock and steamers have to anchor a mile from shore while waiting the coming of health of custom officials, those 1ordly gentlemen who | are never given to undignified haste, you have ample time to admire the prospect, and if the truth must be told, you will do well to turn about without going ashore, if you wish to retain the first delightful impression-for this old city of Spain's patron Saint is one of the many to which distance lends en- I