If the Spanish fleet that has assembled in Havena bay is called upon to fight in the defence of the chief port there is no likelihood that the Spaniards will repeat the stupid blunder they made in 1805, when England floated her flag over the capital. That was a few months before Trafalgar decided the fortunes of the war between England and Spain; and when the Spaniards heard that a British fleet was on the way to attack Havana they prepared to defend the city in a very remarkable manner.
Three warships were in Havana bay, but they were not destined to participate in the fight in the way war-ships are usually expected todo. Before the British fleet appeared in the offing the ingenious Spaniards had knocked holes in the bottoms of their ships and sunk them in the narrow channel leading into the harbour They accomplished one thing at least. The hostile fleet could not enter the harbour until the obstructions in the channel had been removed, and it would be a rather trying undertaking to attempt to clear the channel under fire from the guns of La Cabanas and Moro Castle, so the Spaniards thought they had pat their war-ships to the best possible use.
Bat the British did not carry out the part of the programme the Spaniards had arranged for them. Instead, they landed on the -seaside~north of -the harbour entrance, scaled the: heights.to the rear of Cabanas, captured the fort without difficulty, then tunnelled from the fort to Moro Castle and planted a mine, blew a pet of the Castle into smithereens and wane was theirs.
The history of Havana for the year that it was in England's possession illustrates in a remarkable way what an impetus is given to commerce by a government that maintains good order and fosters trade, In that time over 1,000 ships visited the fine harbour that had hitherto been deserted, agriculture and trade advanced by mighty strides. The experience proved how prosperous Cuba might be under the blessings of good government.
ome of the noble harbours of Cuba are tolerably well-fortified as far as stone walls go. They almost invariably occupy high elevations and their walls are usually very high, and these features, according to war experts, are a source of weakness rather than strength, if they have to face a bombardment from the guns that modern -war-ships carry. Another important fact is that not even the three most strongly fortified ports, Havana, Santiago de Caba, and Guantanamo, have in their armament guns of modern calibre, with the exception of the four guns which Weyler placed at Puata-castle, across the channel from Moro at the entrance to Havana harbour. With the possible exception of these four guns every cannon on the walls of every Cuban coast fort may be dismounted and the walls knocked to pieces by: hostile war-ships while they are still out of range of any cannon trained by a Spanish gunner. This being the case, it seems hardly probable that Spain will expend much energy in placing artificial obstructions at the entrances to many of the numerous Cuban ports, except! Havana and Santiago de Cuba. What would be the use when many of the best forts may be reduced to rabbi by modern war ships standing out'at sea, osides, many of the Cuban ports require no sunken batteries to prevent the entrance of hostile vessels, as far, at lerist, as war ships-are concerned. The ports themselves are shallow and so are their
could not enter them under present condi-trances, and cruisers and etileshipe tions.
One port should be very attractive to the Americans as an excellent harbour that can probably be occupied without much trouble or expense. This is Cardenas, east of Matanzas. The city lies in a spacious bay, and the special advantage of the port in the event of war is that no fortifications have been erected to protect the city'from invasion from the sea, The Spaniards Ihave erected some rude defences on the land side to keep the patriotic Cubans out of the town, but not a stone wall nor an antiquated gun faces the sea front to give some show of ible resistance to an enemy approaching in ships. The failure to provide Cardenas with sea defences is unaccountable, for it is the last har-hour and town of large importance on the north-coast toward the east. "Beyond Cardenas nearly all the industry and life of Cuba's seaboard is shifted from the northern to the southern coast. In time of peace Cardenas does a thriving -trade, particularly in the export of sugar and molasses, The country west and southwest of it is the most fertile in Cuba, and here were most of the large sugar mills and refineries, now in ruins.
Tt was at- Cardenas that Lopez landed with his party of filibusters in 1851, when the idea of annexing Cuba and its 500,000 slaves to this country was encouraged by the slave party in the South. Lopez ex-Eis standard, but he was unable to hold ceted to rally the Cubans and slaves to
out more than two days in Cardenas, and he and fifty of his followers were put to the sword.
Magnificent as Havans's'harbour is, one of-the finest in-the world, -it-isstill sur.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.