The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-10-09
SAINT JAMES, OF CUBA.
THE HIRBOR OF GUINTAN4 MO,
 SIBONET,

Look To-iay--HHidden Harbor,'
 Point nIasai and Other Historic Place
 In the Netghborh ood of Santiago.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.l
 Off the Eastern End Of Cuba, Sept.
 1.--Nowhere can you find more pie
 turesque place, as seen from the deck
 of q steamer than the four-hundred-
 andeighty -siX-year-o town which
 Diego VeIazquez christened in honor of
 Spains patron saint. San Jago, San
 Diego, Santiago, are really the same
 name, rendered James in our language;
 and whenever Spaniards have been
 ular city of the patron saint, spoken of
 as Santiago de Cuba by way of identi-
 fcation, is the oldest standing town on
 the western hemisphere next to Santa
 Domingo, which Columbus himself es-
 tablished only eighteen years earlier
 And such an ancient and Spanish savor
 docs it still retain, in spite Of General
 Wood and American sanitation, that if
 the crews of the discoverers were to
 come this way on ghostly cruise, they
 would have no difficulty in recognizing
 the scene of their ancient triumph.
 Merely to g. through the long, sinuouS
 channel which leads from the open sea. to Santiago harbor is worth maing a trip to Cuba. Having rounded the pink
 and gray walls of the Moro-the rock
 ribbed fortress of the middle ages, which ante-dates Havana's Moro by at least a hundred years-you enter
 break in the hills, barely wide enough for the steamer to squeeze through, guided by an experienced pilot. And thenceforth you seem to be sailing on land instead of a ribbon-like strip of deep, blue water, so close are the shores with their mediaeval Notifications, 1nangrove Swamps whose lower branch es are covered with ludicrously gaping bivalves, clumps of royal palms wav- ing their green plumes in welcome, lau- rel groves, thicets of intensely green bananas, and here and there pleasant villa. surrounded by gardens and cane fields Presently you turn a shary an gle of the hills and find yourself in broad, sheltered basin-one of the most beautiful harbors in the world. It is not quite so big as the bay of Rio de Janero, but, like the Brazilian harbor, it lies along hills with mountains camped round about it, Santiago bay is completely land-locked ranges of hills enclosing it on every side, with numerous points and promontories jut- ting down into the tranquil waters, leaving deep little coves behind them, all with silvery beeches and borders of cocoa palms. To the right are low hills, covered with greenest verdure: to the left stretches Cayo Smith, with it's fishermen's huts and more pretentious dwellings; in the rear Moro Castle cuts off the sea; and in front, entirely cover ing sloping hillside, lies the antique city, between blue water and purple mountains. Its low, massive walls struggling around central courts and tinted all the colors of the rainbow, barred windows and flat roofs covered with red tiles, look as Oriental as Bag dad or Constantinople, as ancient as Damascus or Jerusalem. Tangiers, in Africa, occupies a similar sloping hill- side, and this old city of San Jago shows the same Moorish origin trans mitted through southern Spain. What checkered career had this old place enjoyed before ever Plymouth Rock was heard of. Tn 1518, few years af- ter it's christening, Juan de Grijalva re- cruited an army here for the subjuga- tion of Yucatan. Cortez sailed to the conquest of Mexico from the then four ishing city of Santiago. In 152S Don Narvaez left this port to subdue the In- dians of Florida Here, in the same year, came De Soto's expeditions; and here the banners of Spain were uplift- l ed for the conquest of the two Ameri- | cas- Pobre Espana! None are now so | poor as to render her homage And | what history for that lusty infant, the United States, has the locality been making in the last two years-what place of stirring and sorrowful memo ries it now is to all American hearts.
 To the stranger the streets of Santi- are of unflageing interest; they are so steep and narrow and winding, their old, old buildings, masduerading under bright paint like bewiggled and be- rouged oetogenarians, set flush with the oot-wide sidewalks; their musty churches di'apidated public buildings, plazas and market-house quaint as the bazaars of Cairo. All these have been so often photographed and written about of late by our visiting country men that stay-at- homes can almost see them in their minds cye-all but the heavenly blue of sea and sky, the living green of the verdure and the purple grandeur of the mountains, the soft, warm air and intangible charms Of the ,ropics, which neither artists brush nor authors pen can accurately portray.
 There are several outside points of interest which the traveller should not 'ail to visit Besides the now easily &C., ,essible Moro Castle, with all it's dis nal dungeons, above and below, ex- posed to the world, there is another spot ,f infamous history--the long% low at the edge of a near " mangrove swamp, where, just twen y-six years ago this coming November, Captain Fry, of the "Virgnius," with lsirty-six of his crew, were butchered ike sheep. But one must not blame spain altogether for that tragedy. The United States virtually sanctioned the ' ct of barbarsm by admitting that the l Virginus" men were pirates and had 10 right to fly the flag of their coun- ry in foreign waters. As everybody (