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

orn Cuba.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)
 May 24, 103S.
 Most visitors to Cuba touch first and last at Havana on the northern shore anG restrict their explorations to that city and it's environs. Those travellers know about as much of Cuba as the foreigners who spend a few weeks in New York, Boston and Philadelphia and then go home and write treatises on America. The truth is that this lar- gest island of the Antilles, extending through three and a half degrees of lat itude, presents as many varied aspects as q journey across our continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It's length from east to west is only trifle more than the distance between New York and Chicago, but the northern coast is entirely different from the southern, and the eastern portion from the west ern. Approaching Cuba as Columbus did, across the narrow stretch of sea from Santo Domingo, you first sight the long, low promontory of the eastern tip. which the discoverer named Point Maysi. So different is the prospect from that seen at the other end of the island, as you come down in the usual route from New York or Florida, that you can hardly believe it is the same small country. From Maysi Point the land rises in sharp terraces, backed by high hills and higher mountains, all so vague in mist and cloud that you do not know where land ends and sky be- gins. Coming nearer, gray ridges are evolved, which look like cowled monks peering over each others shoulders, with here and there majestic peak towering far above his fellows, like the Pico Turqutno, eleven thousand feet above the sea. Sailing westward along this south shore the Queen of the An titles" looks desolate and forbidding as compared to other portions of the West Indies; panorama of wild heights and sterile shores, and surge-beaten cliffs covered with screaming sea birds. At rare intervals an opening in the rock bound coast betrays a tiny harbor, bor- dered by cocoa palms, so guarded and concealed by hills, and it's sudden reve- ldllOI, NHC1l ClOSG upO1l IL, ctS lOlllSlleS you as it did the first explorer. Ac- cording to tradition, every one of these was once pirates lair, in the good old days we read about, when Hong, low suspicious looking craft, with raking masts,'' used tol steal out from shell tered coves to plunder the unwary. Each little bay, whose existence was unknown to honest mariners has a high wooded point near it's entrance, where the sea robbers kept perpetual watch for passing merchantmen and treasure laden galleons, their own swift sailing vessels safe out of sight within the cove; and then, at a given signal, out they would dart upon the unsus- pecting prey like spider from his web. Among the most notorious piratical rendezvous was Guantanamo, which our warships are said to have shelled two or three times of late. In recent years it's narrow bay, branching far in land like a river has become of consid- erable consequence by reason of a rail- way which connects it with Santiago; and also because the patriot army, hid- den in the nearby mountains, have en- tertained hopes of overcoming the Spanish garrison and making it a base for receiving outside assistance. Be- fore the war there were extensive sugar plantations in this vicinity-now all de- vastated. The Cobre mountains loom- ing darlly against the horizon, are the great copper and iron range of Cuba, said to contain untold mineral wealth, waiting to be developed by Yankee en- terprise. In earlier days, four million dollars year was the average value of Cuba's copper and iron exports; but in 1867 6,000,000 tons were taken out in less than ten months. Then Spain put her foot in it. as usual. Not content with the lions share which she had aI- ways realized in exorbitant taxes on the product, she increased the excise charges to such an extent as to kill the industry outright For a long time af- rewards the ore lay undsturbed in the Cobre "pockets' until the attention of Americans was turned this way. Their first iron and copper claims in these mountains were recognized by the Gu ban government about seventeen years ago. Three Yankee corporations have developed rich tracts of mining territo- ry hereabouts. built railways from the coast to their works on the hills and ex- pUTIcu OTC lO tIc CU1tCd NOteALCo | lC oldest of these companies employed two thousand men and had sixteen hundred cars and fleet of twenty steamers for the transportation of it's output. The Carnegie company, whose product was shipped to Philadelphia, also employed upwards of a thousand men.
 At last an abrupt termination of the stern gray cliffs which mark this shore line indicates the proximity of Santiago harbor; and a nearer approach reveals tke most picturesque fort as castle, as well as one of the oldest, to be found on the western hemisphere. An enormous rounding rock, whose base has been hollowed into great caverns by the restless Caribbean, standing just at the entrance of the narrow channel leading into the hacbor, is carried up from the waters edge in a succession of walls ramparts, towers and turrets, forming perfect picture of a rocll-ribbed for tress of the middle ages. This is the famous castle of San Jago, the Moro which anti-dates the more familiar for tress of the same name in Havana har-
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