The Republican journal., 1898-06-02

| I'S Will 0lIStt buliitIO, u, ana II COM
| Dletelv cured me"
stone, thanked by antiquated cannon
Above it, the lines of masonry are sharp
| ly drawn, each guarded terrace receding
upon the one next higher all set with
cannon and dominated by massive tower
| of obsolete construction. 1t 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 your steamer close up under the
frowning battlements. You have ample
time to study it. Window holes cut into
the rock in all directions show how ex-
tensive are the excavations. A large gar
rison is always quartered 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 walks, connected by
stairways cut into the solid rock, each
range covered with lolling soldiers. You
! pass so near that you can hear them chat
ting together. Those on the topmost
parapet dangling their blue wooden legs
over, are so high and SO directly overhead
that they remind you of flies on the ceiling.
In various places small inches have been
eXcavated in the cliff, some with cruel
| fixes, or figures of saints. Iu other
| places the bare, unbroken wall of rock
runs up, sheer and straight a hundred
feet. Below, on the ocean side, are
caves, deep, dark and uncanny, worn
deep into the rock. Some of them are so
for generations. The broad and lofty en-
frances to one of them, followed by the
encroaching sea, is as perfect an arch as
could be drawn by skillful architect,
and with it tradition is connected which
| dates back couple of centuries. A story
or two above these cave eaten caverns are
many small windows, each heavily barred
with iron. They are dungeons, dug into
be written, Leave hope behind all ye
who enter here?' A crowd of haggard,
pallid faces are pressed against the bars;
and as you steam slowly by, SO close that
you might speak to the wretched prison
ers, it seems as if shadow had suddenly
| fallen upon the bright sunshine, and
chill, like that of coming death, Expresses
the heart. Since time out of mind, the
Moro of Santiago has furnished dungeons
for those who have incurred the displeas-
ure of the government, infinitely more to
be dreaded than those of 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 cause. Had these Shiny walls
tongue, what stories they might reveal
of crime and suffering, of fortunes nobly
undergone, of death prolonged through
| dragging years, and murders that will not
''out' until the Judgment day. Against
| that old tower, quarter of century
ago, our countrymen of the ''Virginius''
were butchered like sheep. Scores of
later patriots have been led out upon the
ramparts and shot, their 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 harbor,
pursues its sinuous course past several
other Notifications of quaint construction,
but of little use against modern guns
between low hills and broad meadows,
fishing hamlets and cocoa nut groves.
Presently you turn sharp angle in the
hills and enter broad, land locked bay,
enclosed on every side by ranges of hills
with numerous points and promontorieS
jutting into the tranquil water, leaving
deep little coves behind them, all fringed
with cocoa palms. Between this blue bay
and towering background of purple
mountains, lies the city which Diego Velaz-
|
the patron saint of Spain, as far back as the
year 1914. 1t is the Oldest standing city
in the New World, excepting Santo Dom
lingo, which Columbus himself established
only eighteen years earlier. By the way
San Jago, San Diego, and Santiago, are
really the same name, rendered Saint
James in our language; and wherever the
Spaniards have been are numbers of
them. This particular city of Saint James
occupies sloping hillside 800 miles south
east from Havana, itself the capital of
a department., and ranks the third city OF
Cuba in commercial importance, -Matan-
zas being second. As usual in all these
southern ports the water is too shallow