Chapter XXV…

Chapter XXV

ADMINISTRATION OF McKINLEY (CONTINUED), 1897-1901.

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.

Opening Incidents--Bombardment of Matanzas--Dewey's Wonderful Victory at Manila--Disaster to the Winslow at Cardenas Bay--The First American Loss of Life--Bombardment of San Juan, Porto Rico--The Elusive Spanish Fleet--Bottled-up in Santiago Harbor--Lieutenant Hobson's Daring Exploit--Second Bombardment of Santiago and Arrival of the Army--Gallant Work of the Rough Riders and the Regulars--Battles of San Juan and El Caney--Destruction of Cervera's Fleet--General Shafter Reinforced in Front of Santiago--Surrender of the City--General Miles in Porto Rico--An Easy Conquest--Conquest of the Philippines--Peace Negotiations and Signing of the Protocol--Its Terms--Members of the National Peace Commission--Return of the Troops from Cuba and Porto Rico--The Peace Commission in Paris--Conclusion of its Work--Terms of the Treaty--Ratified by the Senate.

"STRIPPING FOR THE FIGHT."

Enough has already been stated to show the real cause of the war between the United States and Spain. It was, in brief, a war for humanity, for America could no longer close her ears to the wails of the dead and dying that lay perishing, as may be said, on her very doorsteps. It was not a war for conquest or gain, nor was it in revenge for the awful crime of the destruction of the Maine, though few nations would have restrained their wrath with such sublime patience as did our countrymen while the investigation was in progress. Yet it cannot be denied that this unparalleled outrage intensified the war fever in the United States, and thousands were eager for the opportunity to punish Spanish cruelty and treachery. Congress reflected this spirit when by a unanimous vote it appropriated $50,000,000 "for the national defense." The War and Navy Departments hummed with the activity of recruiting, the preparations of vessels and coast defenses, the purchase of war material and vessels at home, while agents were sent to Europe to procure all the war-ships in the market. Unlimited capital was at their command, and the question of price was never an obstacle. When hostilities impended the United States was unprepared for war, but by amazing activity, energy, and skill the preparations were pushed and completed with a rapidity that approached the marvelous.

War being inevitable, President McKinley sought to gain time for our consular representatives to leave Cuba, where the situation daily and hourly grew more dangerous. Consul Hyatt left Santiago on April 3d, but Consul-General Lee, always fearless, remained at Havana until April 10th, with the resolution that no American refugees should be left behind, where very soon their lives would not be worth an hour's purchase. Lee landed in Key West April 11th, and on the same day President McKinley sent his message upon the situation to Congress. On April 18th the two houses adopted the following:

WHEREAS, The abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization, culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United States battleship with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured, as has been set forth by the President of the United States in his message to Congress of April 11, 1898, upon which the action of Congress was invited; therefore,

Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled--

First--That the people of the island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent.

Second--That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the government of the United States does hereby demand, that the government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba, and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters.

Third--That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States, and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of the several States, to such extent as may be necessary to carry these resolutions into effect.

Fourth--That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is completed to leave the government and control of the island to its people.

This resolution was signed by the President April 20th, and a copy served on the Spanish minister, who demanded his passports, and immediately left Washington. The contents were telegraphed to United States Minister Woodford at Madrid, with instructions to officially communicate them to the Spanish government, giving it until April 23d to answer. The Spanish authorities, however, anticipated this action by sending the American minister his passports on the morning of April 21st. This act was of itself equivalent to a declaration of war.

The making of history now went forward with impressive swiftness.

On April 22d the United States fleet was ordered to blockade Havana. On the 24th Spain declared war, and the United States Congress followed with a similar declaration on the 25th. The call for 75,000 volunteer troops was increased to 125,000 and subsequently to 200,000. The massing of men and stores was rapidly begun throughout the country. Within a month expeditions were organized for various points of attack, war-vessels were bought, and ocean passenger steamers were converted into auxiliary cruisers and transports. By the first of July about 40,000 soldiers had been sent to Cuba and the Philippine Islands. The rapidity with which preparations were made and the victories gained and the progress shown by the Americans at once astonished and challenged the admiration of foreign nations, who had regarded America as a country unprepared for war by land or sea. On April 27th, following the declaration of war on the 25th, Admiral Sampson, having previously blockaded the harbor of Havana, was reconnoitering with three vessels in the vicinity of Matanzas, Cuba, when he discovered the Spanish forces building earthworks, and ventured so close in his efforts to investigate the same that a challenge shot was fired from the fortification, Rubal Cava. Admiral Sampson quickly formed the New York, Cincinnati, and Puritan into a triangle and opened fire with their eight-inch guns. The action was very spirited on both sides for the space of eighteen minutes, at the expiration of which time the Spanish batteries were silenced and the earthworks destroyed, without casualty on the American side, though two shells burst dangerously near the New York. The last shot fired by the Americans was from one of the Puritan's thirteen-inch guns, which landed with deadly accuracy in the very centre of Rubal Cava, and, exploding, completely destroyed the earthworks. This was the first action of the war, though it could hardly be dignified by the name of a battle.

THE BATTLE OF MANILA.

It was expected that the next engagement would be the bombardment of Morro Castle, at Havana. But it is the unexpected that often happens in war. In the Philippine Islands, on the other side of the world, the first real battle--one of the most remarkable in history--was next to occur.

On April 25th the following dispatch of eight potent words was cabled to Commodore Dewey on the coast of China: "Capture or destroy the Spanish squadron at Manila." "Never," says James Gordon Bennett, "were instructions more effectively carried out. Within seven hours after arriving on the scene of action nothing remained to be done." It was on the 27th that Dewey sailed from Mirs Bay, China, and on the night of the 30th he lay before the entrance of the harbor of Manila, seven hundred miles away. Under the cover of darkness, with all lights extinguished on his ships, he daringly steamed into this unknown harbor, which he believed to be strewn with mines, and at daybreak engaged the Spanish fleet. Commodore Dewey knew it meant everything for him and his fleet to win or lose this battle. He was in the enemy's country, 7,000 miles from home. The issue of this battle must mean victory, Spanish dungeons, or the bottom of the ocean. "Keep cool and obey orders" was the signal he gave to his fleet, and then came the order to fire. The Americans had seven ships, the Olympia, Baltimore, Raleigh, Petrel, Concord, Boston, and the dispatch-boat McCullough. The Spaniards had eleven, the Reina Christina, Castilla, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, General Lezo, Marquis de Duero, Cano, Velasco, Isla de Mindanao, and a transport.

From the beginning Commodore Dewey fought on the offensive, and, after the manner of Nelson and Farragut, concentrated his fire upon the strongest ships one after another with terrible execution. The Spanish ships were inferior to his, but there were more of them, and they were under the protection of the land batteries. The fire of the Americans was especially noted for its terrific rapidity and the wonderful accuracy of its aim. The battle lasted for about five hours, and resulted in the destruction of all the Spanish ships and the silencing of the land batteries. The Spanish loss in killed and wounded was estimated to be fully one thousand men, while on the American side not a ship was even seriously damaged and not a single man was killed outright, and only six were wounded. More than a month after the battle, Captain Charles B. Gridley, Commander of the Olympia, died, though his death was the result of an accident received in the discharge of his duty during the battle, and not from a wound. On May 2d Commodore Dewey cut the cable connecting Manila with Hong Kong, and destroyed the fortifications at the entrance of Manila Bay, and took possession of the naval station at Cavite. This was to prevent communication between the Philippine Islands and the government at Madrid, and necessitated the sending of Commodore Dewey's official account of the battle by the dispatch-boat MCCullough to Hong Kong, whence it was cabled to the United States. After its receipt, May 9th, both Houses adopted resolutions of congratulation to Commodore Dewey and his officers and men for their gallantry at Manila, voted an appropriation for medals for the crew and a fine sword for the gallant Commander, and also passed a bill authorizing the President to appoint another rear-admiral, which honor was promptly conferred upon Commodore Dewey, accompanied by the thanks of the President and of the nation for the admirable and heroic services rendered his country.

The Battle of Manila must ever remain a monument to the daring and courage of Admiral Dewey. However unevenly matched the two fleets may have been, the world agrees with the eminent foreign naval critic who declared: "This complete victory was the product of forethought, cool, well-balanced judgment, discipline, and bravery. It was a magnificent achievement, and Dewey will go down in history ranking with John Paul Jones and Lord Nelson as a naval hero."

Admiral Dewey might have taken possession of the city of Manila immediately. He cabled the United States that he could do so, but the fact remained that he had not sufficient men to care for his ships and at the same time effect a successful landing in the town of Manila. Therefore he chose to remain on his ships, and though the city was at his mercy, he refrained from a bombardment because he believed it would lead to a massacre of the Spaniards on the part of the insurgents surrounding the city, which it would be beyond his power to stop. This humane manifestation toward the conquered foe adds to the lustre of the hero's crown, and at the same time places the seal of greatness upon the brow of the victor. He not only refrained from bombarding the city, but received and cared for the wounded Spaniards upon his own vessels. Thus, while he did all that was required of him without costing his country the life of a single citizen, he manifested a spirit of humanity and generosity toward the vanquished foe fully in keeping with the sympathetic spirit which involved this nation in the war for humanity's sake.

The Battle of Manila further demonstrated that a fleet with heavier guns is virtually invulnerable in a campaign with a squadron bearing lighter metal, however gallantly the crew of the latter may fight.

Before the Battle of Manila it was recognized that the government had serious trouble on its hands. On May 4th President McKinley nominated ten new Major-Generals, including Thomas H. Wilson, Fitzhugh Lee, Wm. J. Sewell (who was not commissioned), and Joseph Wheeler, from private life, and promoted Brigadier-Generals Breckinridge, Otis, Coppinger, Shafter, Graham, Wade, and Merriam, from the regular army. The organization and mobilization of troops was promptly begun and rapidly pushed. Meantime our naval vessels were actively cruising around the Island of Cuba, expecting the appearance of the Spanish fleet.

On May 11th the gunboat Wilmington, revenue-cutter Hudson, and the torpedo-boat Winslow entered Cardenas Bay, Cuba, to attack the defenses and three small Spanish gunboats that had taken refuge in the harbor. The Winslow being of light draft took the lead, and when within eight hundred yards of the fort was fired upon with disastrous effect, being struck eighteen times and rendered helpless. For more than an hour the frail little craft was at the mercy of the enemy's batteries. The revenue-cutter Hudson quickly answered her signal of distress by coming to the rescue, and as she was in the act of drawing the disabled boat away a shell from the enemy burst on the Winslow's deck, killing three of her crew outright and wounding many more. Ensign Worth Bagley, of the Winslow, who had recently entered active service, was one of the killed. He was the first officer who lost his life in the war. The same shell badly wounded Lieutenant Bernadon, Commander of the boat. The Hudson, amidst a rain of fire from the Spanish gunboats and fortifications, succeeded in towing the Winslow to Key West, where the bodies of the dead were prepared for burial and the vessel was placed in repair. On May 12th the First Infantry landed near Port Cabanas, Cuba, with supplies for the insurgents, which they succeeded in delivering after a skirmish with the Spanish troops. This was the first land engagement of the war.

On the same date Admiral Sampson's squadron arrived at San Juan, Porto Rico, whither it had gone in the expectation of meeting with Admiral Cervera's fleet, which had sailed westward from the Cape Verde Islands on April 29th, after Portugal's declaration of neutrality. The Spanish fleet, however, did not materialize, and Admiral Sampson, while on the ground, concluded it would be well to draw the fire of the forts that he might at least judge of their strength and efficiency, if indeed he should not render them incapable of assisting the Spanish fleet in the event of its resorting to this port at a later period. Accordingly, Sampson bombarded the batteries defending San Juan, inflicting much damage and sustaining a loss of two men killed and six wounded. The loss of the enemy is not known. The American war-ships sustained only trivial injuries, but after the engagement it could be plainly seen that one end of Morro Castle was in ruins. The Cabras Island fort was silenced and the San Carlos battery was damaged. No shots were aimed at the city by the American fleet.

Deeming it unnecessary to wait for the Spanish war-ships in the vicinity of San Juan, Sampson withdrew his squadron and sailed westward in the hope of finding Cervera's fleet, which was dodging about the Caribbean Sea. First it was heard of at the French island, Martinique, whence after a short stay it sailed westward. Two days later it halted at the Dutch island, Curacoa, for coal and supplies. After leaving this point it was again lost sight of. Then began the chase of Commodore Schley and Admiral Sampson to catch the fugitive. Schley, with his flying squadron, sailed from Key West around the western end of Cuba, and Sampson kept guard over the Windward and other passages to the east of the island. It was expected that one or the other of these fleets would encounter the Spaniard on the open sea, but in this they were mistaken. Cervera was not making his way to the Mexican shore on the west, as some said, nor was he seeking to slip through one of the passages into the Atlantic and sail home to Spain, nor attack Commodore Watson's blockading vessels before Havana, according to other expert opinions expressed and widely published. For many days the hunt of the war-ships went on like a fox-chase. On May 21st Commodore Schley blockaded Cienfuegos, supposing that Cervera was inside the harbor, but on the 24th he discovered his mistake and sailed to Santiago, where he lay before the entrance to the harbor for three days, not knowing whether or not the Spaniard was inside. On May 30th it was positively discovered that he had Cervera bottled up in the narrow harbor of Santiago. He had been there since the 19th, and had landed 800 men, 20,000 Mauser rifles, a great supply of ammunition, and four great guns for the defense of the city.

OPERATIONS AGAINST SANTIAGO.

On May 31st Commodore Schley opened fire on the fortifications at the mouth of the harbor, which lasted for about half an hour. This was for the purpose of discovering the location and strength of the batteries, some of which were concealed, and in this he was completely successful. Two of the batteries were silenced, and the flagship of the Spaniards, which took part in the engagement, was damaged. The Americans received no injury to vessels and no loss of men. On June 1st Admiral Sampson arrived before Santiago, and relieved Commodore Schley of the chief command of the forces, then consisting of sixteen war-ships.

Admiral Sampson, naturally a cautious commander, suffered great apprehension lest Cervera might slip out of the harbor and escape during the darkness of the night or the progress of a storm, which would compel the blockading fleet to stand far off shore. There was a point in the channel wide enough for only one warship to pass at a time, and if this could be rendered impassable Cervera's doom would be sealed. How to reach and close this passage was the difficult problem to be solved. On either shore of the narrow channel stood frowning forts with cannon, and there were other fortifications to be passed before it could be reached. Young Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson, a naval engineer, had attached himself to Admiral Sampson's flagship, New York, just before it sailed from Key West, and it was this young man of less than thirty years who solved the problem by a plan originated by Admiral Sampson, which he executed with a heroic daring that finds perhaps no parallel in all naval history. At three o'clock A.M., June 3d, in company with seven volunteers from the New York and other ships, he took the United States collier Merrimac, a large vessel with 600 tons of coal on board, and started with the purpose of sinking it in the channel. The chances were ten to one that the batteries from the forts would sink the vessel before it could reach the narrow neck, and the chances were hardly one in one hundred that any of the men on board the collier would come out of this daring attempt alive. The ship had hardly started when the forts opened fire, and amid the thunder of artillery and a rain of steel and bursting shells the boat with its eight brave heroes held on its way, as steadily as if they knew not their danger. The channel was reached, and the boat turned across the channel. The sea-doors were opened and torpedoes exploded by the intrepid crew, sinking the vessel almost instantly, but not in the position desired. As the ship went down the men, with side-arms buckled on, took to a small boat, and, escape being impossible, they surrendered to the enemy. It seems scarcely less than a miracle that any of the eight men escaped, yet the fact remained that not one of them was seriously injured. The Spaniards were so impressed with this act of bravery and heroism that they treated the prisoners with the utmost courtesy, confined them in Morro Castle, and Admiral Cervera promptly sent a special officer, under a flag of truce, to inform Admiral Sampson of their safety. The prisoners were kept confined in Morro Castle for some days, when they were removed to a place of greater safety, where they were held until exchanged on July 7th.

THE SECOND BOMBARDMENT OF SANTIAGO AND THE COMING OF THE ARMY.

On the 6th of June the American fleet under Admiral Sampson bombarded the forts of Santiago for about three hours. The gunners were all instructed, however, to spare Morro Castle lest they should inflict injury upon Hobson and his heroic companions, who were then confined within its walls. Nearly all of the fortifications at the entrance of the harbor were silenced. An examination after the fleet had withdrawn revealed the fact that no lives were lost on the American side, and none of the vessels were seriously injured. The Spanish ship Reina Mercedes was sunk in the harbor, she being the only ship from the enemy's fleet which ventured within the range of the American's guns.

The danger of entering the narrow harbor in the face of Cervera's fleet rendered it necessary to take the city by land, and the government began preparations to send General Shafter with a large force from Tampa to aid the fleet in reducing the city. Some 15,000 men, including the now famous Rough Riders of New York, were hurried upon transports, and under the greatest convoy of gunboats, cruisers, and battleships which ever escorted an army started for the western end of the island of Cuba.

But the honor of making the first landing on Cuban soil belongs to the marines. It was on June the 10th, a few days before the army of General Shafter sailed from Tampa, that a landing was effected by Colonel Huntington's six hundred marines at Caimanera, Guantanamo Bay, some distance east of Santiago. The object of this landing was twofold: first, to secure a place where our war-ships could safely take on coal from colliers, and, second, to unite if possible with the insurgents in harassing the Spaniards until General Shafter's army could arrive. Furthermore, Guantanamo Bay furnished the American ships a safe harbor in case of storm.

In the whole history of the war few more thrilling passages are to be found than the record of this brave band's achievements. The place of landing was a low, round, bush-covered hill on the eastern side of the bay. On the crest of the hill was a small clearing occupied by an advance post of the Spanish army. When the marines landed and began to climb the hill, the enemy, with little resistance, retreated to the woods, and the marines were soon occupying the cleared space abandoned by them. They had scarcely begun to compliment themselves on their easy victory when they discovered that the retreat had only been a snare to lure them into the open space, while unfortunately all around the clearing the woods grew thick, and their unprotected position was also overlooked by a range of higher hills covered with a dense undergrowth. Thus the Spanish were able under cover of the bushes to creep close up to our forces, and they soon began to fire upon them from the higher ground of the wooded range. The marines replied vigorously to the fire of their hidden foe, and thus continued their hit-and-miss engagement for a period of four days and nights, with only occasional intermissions. Perhaps the poor marksmanship of the Spaniards is to be thanked for the fact that they were not utterly annihilated. On the fourth day the Spanish gave up the contest and abandoned the field.

Major Henry C. Cochrane, second in command, states that he slept only an hour and a half in the four days, and that many of his men became so exhausted that they fell asleep standing on their feet with their rifles in their hands. It is remarkable that during the four days the Americans lost only six killed and about twenty wounded. The Spaniards suffered a loss several times as great, fifteen of them having been found by the Americans dead on the field. It is not known how many they carried away or how many were wounded.

THE LANDING OF SHAFTER'S ARMY.

On June 13th troops began to leave Tampa and Key West for operations against Santiago, and on June 20th the transports bearing them arrived off that city. Two days later General Shafter landed his army of 16,000 soldiers at Daiquiri, a short distance east of the entrance to the harbor, with the loss of only two men, and they by accident. Before the coming of the troops the Spanish had evacuated the village of Daiquiri, which is a little inland from the anchorage bearing the same name, and set fire to the town, blowing up two magazines and destroying the railroad roundhouse containing several locomotives. As the transports neared the landing-place Sampson's ships opened fire upon Juragua, engaging all the forts for about six miles to the west. This was done to distract the attention of the Spanish from the landing soldiers, and was entirely successful. After the forts were silenced the New Orleans and several gunboats shelled the woods in advance of the landing troops. The soldiers went ashore in full fighting trim, each man carrying thirty-six rations, two hundred rounds of ammunition for his rifle, and a shelter-tent.

While the troops were landing at Daiquiri, the battleship Texas, hitherto considered as an unfortunate ship by the attaches of the navy, completely changed her reputation and distinguished herself by assailing and silencing, unaided, the Spanish battery La Socapa at Santiago, which had hitherto withstood the attacks against it, though all the ships of Commodore Schley's command had twice fiercely bombarded it without result. Captain Philip and his men were complimented in warm terms of praise by Admiral Sampson. The Texas was struck but once, and that by the last shot from the Spanish fort, killing one man and wounding eight others, seriously damaging the ship.

THE VICTORY OF THE ROUGH RIDERS.

On June 24th the force under General Shafter reached Juragua, and the battle by land was now really to begin. It was about ten miles out from Santiago, at a point known as La Guasima. The country was covered with high grass and chaparral, and in this and on the wooded hills a strong force of Spaniards was hidden. Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt's Rough Riders, technically known as the First Volunteer Cavalry, under command of Colonel Wood, were in the fight, and it is to their bravery and dash that the glory of the day chiefly belongs. Troops under command of General Young had been sent out in advance, with the Rough Riders on his flank. There were about 1,200 of the cavalry in all, including the Rough Riders and the First and Tenth Regulars. They encountered a body of two thousand Spaniards in a thicket, whom they fought dismounted. The volunteers were especially eager for the fight, and, perhaps due somewhat to their own imprudence, were led into an ambuscade, as perfect as was ever planned by an Indian. The main body of the Spaniards was posted on a hill approached by two heavily wooded slopes and fortified by two blockhouses, flanked by intrenchments of stones and fallen trees. At the bottom of these hills run two roads, along one of which the Rough Riders marched, and along the other eight troops of the Eighth and Tenth Cavalry, under General Young. These roads are little more than gullies, very narrow, and at places almost impassable. Nearly half a mile separated Roosevelt's men from the Regulars, and it was in these trails that the battle began.

For an hour they held their position in the midst of an unseen force, which poured a perfect hail of bullets upon them from in front and on both sides. At length, seeing that their only way of escape was by dashing boldly at the hidden foe, Colonel Wood took command on the right of his column of Rough Riders, placing Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt at the left, and thus, with a rousing yell, they led their soldiers in a rushing charge before which the Spaniards fled from the hills and the victorious assailants took the blockhouses. The Americans had sixteen killed and fifty-two wounded, forty-two of the casualties occurring to the Rough Riders and twenty-six among the Regulars. It is estimated that the Spanish killed were nearly or quite one hundred. Thirty-seven were found by the Americans dead on the ground. They had carried off their wounded, and doubtless thought they had taken most of the killed away also.

PREPARING FOR THE ASSAULT UPON SANTIAGO.

The victory of the Rough Riders and the Regulars at La Guasima, though so dearly bought, stimulated the soldiers of the whole army with the spirit of war and the desire for an opportunity to join in the conquest. They had not long to wait. The advance upon Santiago was vigorously prosecuted on the land side, while the ships stood guard over the entrapped Spanish Admiral Cervera in the harbor, and, anon, shelled every fort that manifested signs of activity. On June 25th, Sevilla, within sight of Santiago, was taken by General Chaffee, and an advance upon the city was planned to be made in three columns by way of Altares, Firmeza, and Juragua. General Garcia with 5,000 Cuban insurgents had placed himself some time before at the command of the American leader. On the 28th of June another large expedition of troops was landed, so that the entire force under General Shafter, including the Cuban allies, numbered over 22,000 fighting men.

The enemy fell back at all points until the right of the American column was within three miles of Santiago, and by the end of June the two armies had well-defined positions. The Spanish intrenchments extended around the city, being kept at a distance of about three and one-half miles from the corporation limits. The trenches were occupied by about 12,000 Spanish soldiers, and there were some good fortifications along the line.

It was the policy of General Shafter to distribute his forces so as to face this entire line as nearly as possible. A week was consumed, after the landing was completed, in making these arrangements and in sending forward the artillery, during which time the battle of La Guasima, referred to, with some minor affairs, had occurred. Meantime the ships of Admiral Sampson had dragged up the cables and connected them by tap-wires with Shafter's headquarters, thus establishing communication directly with Washington from the scene of battle.

THE BATTLES OF SAN JUAN AND EL CANEY.

The attack began July 1st, involving the whole line, but the main struggle occurred opposite the left centre of the column on the heights of San Juan, and the next greatest engagement was on the right of the American line at the little town of El Caney. These two points are several miles apart, the city of Santiago occupying very nearly the apex of a triangle of which a line connecting these two positions would form the base. John R. Church thus described the battles of July 1st and 2d:

"El Caney was taken by General Lawton's men after a sharp contest and severe loss on both sides. Here as everywhere there were blockhouses and trenches to be carried in the face of a hot fire from Mauser rifles, and the rifles were well served. The jungle must disturb the aim seriously, for our men did not suffer severely while under its cover, but in crossing clearings the rapid fire of the repeating rifles told with deadly effect. The object of the attack on El Caney was to crush the Spanish lines at a point near the city and allow us to gain a high hill from which the place could be bombarded if necessary. In all of this we were entirely successful. The engagement began at 6.40 A.M., and by 4 o'clock the Spaniards were forced to abandon the place and retreat toward their lines nearer the city. The fight was opened by Capron's battery, at a range of 2,400 yards, and the troops engaged were Chaffee's brigade, the Seventh, Twelfth, and Seventeenth Infantry, who moved on Caney from the east; Colonel Miles' brigade of the First, Fourth, and Twenty-fifth Infantry, operating from the south; while Ludlow's brigade, containing the Eighth and Twenty-second Infantry and Second Massachusetts, made a detour to attack from the southwest. The Spanish force is thought to have been 1,500 to 2,000 strong. It certainly fought our men for nine hours, but of course had the advantage of a fort and strong intrenchments.

"The operations of our centre were calculated to cut the communications of Santiago with El Morro and permit our forces to advance to the bay, and the principal effort of General Linares, the Spanish commander in the field, seems to have been to defeat this movement. He had fortified San Juan strongly, throwing up on it intrenchments that in the hands of a more determined force would have been impregnable.

"The battle of San Juan was opened by Grimes' battery, to which the enemy replied with shrapnell. The cavalry, dismounted, supported by Hawkins' brigade, advanced up the valley from the hill of El Pozo, forded several streams, where they lost heavily, and deployed at the foot of the series of hills known as San Juan under a sharp fire from all sides, which was exceedingly annoying because the enemy could not be discerned, owing to the long range and smokeless powder. They were under fire for two hours before the charge could be made and a position reached under the brow of the hill. It was not until nearly 4 o'clock that the neighboring hills were occupied by our troops and the final successful effort to crown the ridge could be made. The obstacles interposed by the Spaniards made these charges anything but the 'rushes' which war histories mention so often. They were slow and painful advances through difficult obstacles and a withering fire. The last 'charge' continued an hour, but at 4.45 the firing ceased, with San Juan in our possession.

"The Spaniards made liberal use of barbed-wire fencing, which proved to be so effective as a stop to our advance that it is likely to take its place among approved defensive materials in future wars. It was used in two ways: Wires were stretched near the ground to trip up our men when on the run. Beyond them were fences in parallel lines, some being too high to be vaulted over.

"The object of our attack was a blockhouse on the top of the hill of San Juan, guarded by trenches and the defenses spoken of, a mile and a half long. Our troops advanced steadily against a hot fire maintained by the enemy, who used their rifles with accuracy, but did not cling to their works stubbornly when we reached them. San Juan was carried in the afternoon. The attack on Aguadores was also successful, though it was not intended to be more than a feint to draw off men who might otherwise have increased our difficulties at San Juan. By nightfall General Shafter was able to telegraph that he had carried all the outworks and was within three-quarters of a mile of the city.

"Though the enemy's lines were broken in the principal places, they yielded no more than was forced from them, and the battle was resumed on the 2d. The last day saw our left flank resting on the bay and our lines drawn around the city within easy gun-fire. Fears were entertained that the enemy would evacuate the place, and the right flank was pushed around to the north and eventually to the northwest of the city."

In the fight at San Juan General Linares, commanding the Spanish forces in Santiago, was severely wounded, and transferred the command to General Jose Toral, second in authority.

THE DESTRUCTION OF CERVERA'S FLEET.

During the previous two days' fight by land the fleet of Admiral Cervera in Santiago harbor had taken an active part in shelling our positions, with no inconsiderable effect; and General Shafter, largely on this account, had about despaired of taking the city, with the force at his command. In fact, he went so far on the morning of July 3d as to telegraph Washington that his losses had been greatly underestimated, that he met with stronger resistance than he had anticipated, and was seriously considering falling back to a position five miles to the rear to await reinforcements. He was also anxious for an interview with Admiral Sampson. The fleet had been shelling the enemy during the two days' fight, but it was necessary that the navy and army should have an understanding; and at 8.30 o'clock on Sunday morning Admiral Sampson with his flagship New York steamed eastward for the purpose of conferring with the general.

General Miles telegraphed General Shafter, in response to his request to hold his position, that he would be with him in a week with strong reinforcements; and he promptly started two expeditions, aggregating over 6,000 men, which reached Santiago on the 8th and 10th respectively, in time to witness the closing engagements and surrender of the city. But fortune again favored our cause and completely changed the situation, unexpectedly to the American commanders of the land and naval forces.

It was on Sunday morning, July 3d, just before Sampson landed to meet Shafter, that Admiral Cervera, in obedience to commands from his home government, endeavored to run his fleet past the blockading squadron of the Americans, with the result that all of his ships were destroyed, nearly 500 of his men killed and wounded, and himself and about 1,300 others were made prisoners. This naval engagement was one of the most dramatic and terrible in all the history of conflict upon the seas, and, as it was really the beginning of the end of what promised to be a long and terrible struggle, it was undoubtedly the most important battle of the war.

It had been just one month, to a day, since Hobson sunk the Merrimac at the harbor's mouth to keep Cervera in, and for nearly one month and a half the fleets of Schley and Sampson had lain, like watch-dogs before the gate, without for one moment relaxing their vigilance. The quiet of Sunday morning brooded over the scene. Even the winds seemed resting from their labors and the sea lay smooth as glass. For two days before, July 1st and 2d, the fleets had bombarded the forts of Santiago for the fourth time, and all the ships, except the Oregon, had steam down so low as to allow them a speed of only five knots an hour. At half-past nine o'clock the bugler sounded the call to quarters, and the Jackies appeared on deck rigged in their cleanest clothes for their regular Sunday inspection. On board the Texas the devout Captain Philip had sounded the trumpet-call to religious services. In an instant a line of smoke was seen coming out of the harbor by the watch on the Iowa, and from that vessel's yard a signal was run up--"The enemy is escaping to the westward." Simultaneously, from her bridge a six-pounder boomed on the still air to draw the attention of the other ships to her fluttering signal. On every vessel white masses were seen scrambling forward. Jackies and firemen tumbled over one another rushing to their stations. Officers jumped into the turrets through manholes, dressed in their best uniforms, and captains rushed to their conning towers. There was no time to waste--scarcely enough to get the battle-hatches screwed on tight. Jingle, jingle, went the signal-bells in the engine-rooms, and "Steam! Steam!" the captains cried through the tubes. Far below decks, in 125 to 150 degrees of heat, naked men shoveled in the black coal and forced drafts were put on.

One minute after the Iowa fired her signal-gun she was moving toward the harbor. From under the Castle of Morro came Admiral Cervera's flagship, the Infanta Maria Teresa, followed by her sister armored cruisers, Almirante Oquendo and Vizcaya--so much alike that they could not be distinguished at any distance. There was also the splendid Cristobal Colon, and after them all the two fine torpedo-boat destroyers, Pluton and Furor. The Teresa opened fire as she sighted the American vessels, as did all of her companions, and the forts from the heights belched forth at the same time. Countless geysers around our slowly approaching battleships showed where the Spanish shells exploded in the water. The Americans replied. The battle was on, but at a long range of two or three miles, so that the secondary batteries could not be called into use; but thirteen-inch shells from the Oregon and Indiana and the twelve-inch shells from the Texas and Iowa were churning up the water around the enemy. At this juncture it seemed impossible for the Americans to head off the Spanish cruisers from passing the western point, for they had come out of the harbor at a speed of thirteen and one-half knots an hour, for which the blockading fleet was not prepared. But Admiral Sampson's instructions were simple and well understood--"Should the enemy come out, close in and head him off"--and every ship was now endeavoring to obey that standing command while they piled on coal and steamed up.

Meanwhile, from the rapidly approaching New York the signal fluttered--"Close into the mouth of the harbor and engage the enemy;" but the admiral was too far away, or the men were too busy to see this signal, which they were, nevertheless, obeying to the letter.

It was not until the leading Spanish cruiser had almost reached the western point of the bay, and when it was evident that Cervera was leading his entire fleet in one direction, that the battle commenced in its fury. The Iowa and the Oregon headed straight for the shore, intending to ram if possible one or more of the Spaniards. The Indiana and the Texas were following, and the Brooklyn, in the endeavor to cut off the advance ship, was headed straight for the western point. The little unprotected Gloucester steamed right across the harbor mouth and engaged the Oquendo at closer range than any of the other ships, at the same time firing on the Furor and Pluton, which were rapidly approaching.

It then became apparent that the Oregon and Iowa could not ram, and that the Brooklyn could not head them off, as she had hoped, and, turning in a parallel course with them, a running fight ensued. Broadside after broadside came fast with terrific slaughter. The rapid-fire guns of the Iowa nearest the Teresa enveloped the former vessel in a mantle of smoke and flame. She was followed by the Oregon, Indiana, Texas, and Brooklyn, all pouring a rain of red-hot steel and exploding shell into the fleeing cruisers as they passed along in their desperate effort to escape. The Furor and Pluton dashed like mad colts for the Brooklyn, and Commodore Schley signaled--"Repel torpedo-destroyers." Some of the heavy ships turned their guns upon the little monsters. It was short work. Clouds of black smoke rising from their thin sides showed how seriously they suffered as they floundered in the sea.

The Brooklyn and Oregon dashed on after the cruisers, followed by the other big ships, leaving the Furor and Pluton to the Gloucester, hoping the New York, which was coming in the distance, would arrive in time to help her out if she needed it. The firing from the main and second batteries of all the battleships--Oregon, Iowa, Texas--and the cruiser Brooklyn was turned upon the Vizcaya, Teresa, and Oquendo with such terrific broadsides and accuracy of aim that the Spaniards were driven from their guns repeatedly; but the officers gave the men liquor and drove them back, beating and sometimes shooting down those who weakened, without mercy; but under the terrific fire of the Americans the poor wretches were again driven away or fell mangled by their guns or stunned from the concussions of the missiles on the sides of their ships.

Presently flames and smoke burst out from the Teresa and the Oquendo. The fire leaped from the port-holes; and amid the din of battle and above it all rose the wild cheers of the Americans as both these splendid ships slowly reeled like drunken men and headed for the shore. "They are on fire! We've finished them," shouted the gunners. Down came the Spanish flags. The news went all over the ships--it being commanded by Commodore Schley to keep everyone informed, even those far below in the fire-rooms--and from engineers and firemen in the hot bowels of the great leviathans to the men in the fighting-tops the welkin rang until the shins reverberated with exuberant cheers.

This was 10.20 A.M. Previously, the two torpedo boats had gone down, and only two dozen of their 140 men survived, these having been picked up by the Gloucester, which plucky little unprotected "dare-devil," not content with the destruction she had courted and escaped only as one of the unexplainable mysteries of Spanish gunnery, was coming up to join the chase after bigger game; and it was to Lieutenant Wainwright, her commander, that Admiral Cervera surrendered. The Maine was avenged. (Lieutenant Wainwright was executive officer on that ill-fated vessel when she was blown up February 15th.) Cervera was wounded, hatless, and almost naked when he was taken on board the Gloucester. Lieutenant Wainwright cordially saluted him and grasped him by the hand, saying, "I congratulate you, Admiral Cervera, upon as gallant a fight as was ever made upon the sea." He placed his cabin at the service of Cervera and his officers, while his surgeon dressed their wounds and his men did all they could for their comfort--Wainwright supplying the admiral with clothing. Cervera was overcome with emotion, and the face of the old gray-bearded warrior was suffused in tears. The Iowa and Indiana came up soon after the Gloucester and assisted in the rescue of the drowning Spaniards from the Oquendo and Teresa, after which they all hurried on after the vanishing Brooklyn and Oregon, which were pursuing the Vizcaya and Colon, the only two remaining vessels of Cervera's splendid fleet. From pursuer and pursued the smoke rose in volumes and the booming guns over the waters sang the song of destruction.

In twenty-four minutes after the sinking of the Teresa and Oquendo, the Vizcaya, riddled by the Oregon's great shells and burning fiercely, hauled down her flag and headed for the shore, where she hung upon the rocks. In a dying effort she had tried to ram the Brooklyn, but the fire of the big cruiser was too hot for her. The Texas and the little Vixen were seen to be about a mile to the rear, and the Vizcaya was left to them and the Iowa, the latter staying by her finally, while the Texas and Vixen followed on.

It looked like a forlorn hope to catch the Colon. She was four and one-half miles away. But the Brooklyn and the Oregon were running like express trains, and the Texas sped after the fugitives with all her might. The chase lasted two hours. Firing ceased, and every power of the ship and the nerve of commodore, captains, and officers were devoted to increasing the speed. Men from the guns, naked to the waist and perspiring in streams, were called on deck for rest and an airing. It was a grimy and dirty but jolly set of Jackies, and jokes were merrily cracked as they sped on and waited. Only the men in the fire-rooms were working as never before. It was their battle now, a battle of speed. At 12.30 it was seen the Americans were gaining. Cheers went up and all was made ready. "We may wing that fellow yet," said Commodore Schley, as he commanded Captain Clark to try a big thirteen-inch shell. "Remember the Maine" was flung out on a pennant from the mast-head of the Oregon, and at 8,500 yards she began to send her 1,000-pound shots shrieking over the Brooklyn after the flying Spaniard. One threw tons of water on board the fugitive, and the Brooklyn a few minutes later with eight-inch guns began to pelt her sides. Everyone expected a game fight from the proud and splendid Colon with her smokeless powder and rapid-fire guns; but all were surprised when, after a feeble resistance, at 1.15 o'clock her captain struck his colors and ran his ship ashore sixty miles from Santiago, opening her sea-valves to sink her after she had surrendered.

Victory was at last complete. As the Brooklyn and Oregon moved upon the prey word of the surrender was sent below, and naked men poured out of the fire-rooms, black with smoke and dirt and glistening with perspiration, but wild with joy. Commodore Schley gazed down at the grimy, gruesome, joyous firemen with glistening eyes suspicious of tears, and said, in a husky voice, eloquent with emotion, "Those are the fellows who made this day." Then he signaled--"The enemy has surrendered." The Texas, five miles to the east, repeated the signal to Admiral Sampson some miles further away, coming at top speed of the New York. Next the commodore signaled the admiral--"A glorious victory has been achieved. Details communicated later." And then, to all the ships, "This is a great day for our country," all of which were repeated by the Texas to the ships further east. The cheering was wild. Such a scene was never, perhaps, witnessed upon the ocean. Admiral Sampson arrived before the Colon sank, and placing the great nose of the New York against that vessel pushed her into shallow water, where she sank, but was not entirely submerged. Thus perished from the earth the bulk of the sea power of Spain.

The Spanish losses were 1,800 men killed, wounded, and made prisoners, and six ships destroyed or sunk, the property loss being about $12,000,000. The American loss was one man killed and three wounded, all from the Brooklyn, a result little short of a miracle from the fact that the Brooklyn was hit thirty-six times, and nearly all the ships were struck more than once.

The prisoners were treated with the utmost courtesy. Many of them were taken or rescued entirely naked, and scores of them were wounded. Their behavior was manly and their fortitude won the admiration of their captors. Whatever may be said of Spanish marksmanship, there is no discount on Spanish courage. After a short detention Cervera and his captured sailors were sent north to New Hampshire and thence to Annapolis, where they were held until released by order of President McKinley, August 31st.

THREATENED BOMBARDMENT OF SANTIAGO AND FLIGHT OF THE REFUGEES.

On July 3d, while the great naval duel was in progress upon the sea, General Shafter demanded the surrender of Santiago upon pain of bombardment. The demand was refused by General Toral, who commanded the forces after the wounding of General Linares. General Shafter stated that he would postpone the bombardment until noon of July 5th to allow foreigners and non-combatants to get out of the city, and he urged General Toral in the name of humanity to use his influence and aid to facilitate the rapid departure of unarmed citizens and foreigners. Accordingly late in the afternoon of July 4th General Toral posted notices upon the walls of Santiago advising all women, children, and non-combatants that between five and nine o'clock on the morning of the 5th they might pass out by any gate of the city, all pilgrims going on foot, no carriages being allowed, and stating that stretchers would be provided for the crippled.

Promptly at five o'clock on the following morning a great line of pilgrims wound out of Santiago. It was no rabble, but well-behaved crowds of men and women, with great droves of children. About four hundred persons were carried out on litters. Many of the poorer women wore large crucifixes and some entered El Caney telling their beads. But there were many not so fortunate as to reach the city. Along the highroads in all directions thousands of families squatted entirely without food or shelter, and many deaths occurred among them. The Red Cross Society did much to relieve the suffering, but it lacked means of transporting supplies to the front.

While the flag of truce was still flying on the morning of July 6th a communication was received from General Toral, requesting that the time of truce be further extended, as he wanted to communicate again with the Spanish government at Madrid concerning the surrender of the city; and, further, that the cable operators, who were Englishmen and had fled to El Caney with the refugees, be returned to the city that he might do so. General Shafter extended the truce until four o'clock on Sunday, July 10th, and the operators returned from El Caney to work the wires for General Toral. During all this time the refugees continued to throng the roads to Siboney and El Caney, until 20,000 fugitives were congregated at the two points. It is a disgraceful fact, however, that while this truce was granted at the request of the Spanish general, it was taken advantage of by the troops under him to loot the city. Both Cuban and Spanish families suffered from their rapacity.

THE LAST BATTLE AND THE SURRENDER OF THE CITY.

On July 8th and 10th the two expeditions of General Miles arrived, reinforcing General Shafter's army with over 6,000 men. General Toral was acquainted with the fact of their presence, and General Miles urgently impressed upon him that further resistance could but result in a useless loss of life. The Spanish commander replied that he had not received permission to surrender, and if the Americans would not wait longer he could only obey orders of his government, and that he and his men would die fighting. Accordingly a joint bombardment by the army and navy was begun. The artillery reply of the Spaniards was feeble and spiritless, though our attack on the city was chiefly with artillery. They seemed to depend most upon their small arms, and returned the volleys fired from the trenches vigorously. Our lines were elaborately protected with over 22,000 sand-bags, while the Spaniards were protected with bamboo poles filled with earth. In this engagement the dynamite gun of the Rough Riders did excellent service, striking the enemy's trenches and blowing field-pieces into the air. The bombardment continued until the afternoon of the second day, when a flag of truce was displayed over the city. It was thought that General Toral was about to surrender, but instead he only asked more time.

On the advice of General Miles, General Shafter consented to another truce, and, at last, on July 14th, after an interview with Generals Miles and Shafter, in which he agreed to give up the city on condition that the army would be returned to Spain at the expense of America, General Toral surrendered. On July 16th the agreement, with the formal approval of the Madrid and Washington governments, was signed in duplicate by the commissioners, each side retaining a copy. This event was accepted throughout the world as marking the end of the Spanish-American War.

The conditions of the surrender involved the following points:

"(1) The 20,000 refugees at El Caney and Siboney to be sent back to the city. (2) An American infantry patrol to be posted on the roads surrounding the city and in the country between it and the American cavalry. (3) Our hospital corps to give attention, as far as possible, to the sick and wounded Spanish soldiers in Santiago. (4) All the Spanish troops in the province, except ten thousand men at Holguin, under command of General Luque, to come into the city and surrender. (5) The guns and defenses of the city to be turned over to the Americans in good condition. (6) The Americans to have full use of the Juragua Railroad, which belongs to the Spanish government. (7) The Spaniards to surrender their arms. (8) All the Spaniards to be conveyed to Spain on board of American transports with the least possible delay, and be permitted to take portable church property with them."

TAKING POSSESSION OF SANTIAGO AND RAISING THE AMERICAN FLAG.

The formality of taking possession of the city yet remained to be done. To that end, immediately after the signing of the agreement by the commissioners, General Shafter notified General Toral that he would formally receive his surrender of the city the next day, Sunday, July 17th, at nine o'clock in the morning. Accordingly at about 8.30 A.M., Sunday, General Shafter, accompanied by the commander of the American army, General Nelson A. Miles, Generals Wheeler and Lawton, and several officers, walked slowly down the hill to the road leading to Santiago. Under the great mango tree which had witnessed all the negotiations, General Toral, in full uniform, accompanied by 200 Spanish officers, met the Americans. After a little ceremony in military manoeuvring, the two commanding generals faced each other, and General Toral, speaking in Spanish, said:

"Through fate I am forced to surrender to General Shafter, of the American army, the city and the strongholds of the city of Santiago."

General Toral's voice trembled with emotion as he spoke the words giving up the town to his victorious enemy. As he finished speaking the Spanish officers presented arms.

General Shafter, in reply, said:

"I receive the city in the name of the government of the United States."

The officers of the Spanish general then wheeled about, presenting arms, and General Shafter, with the American officers, cavalry and infantry, chosen for the occasion, passed into the city and on to the governor's palace, where a crowd, numbering 3,000 persons, had gathered. As the great bell in the tower of the cathedral nearby gave the first stroke of twelve o'clock the American flag was run up from the flag-pole on the palace, and as it floated to the breeze all hats were removed by the spectators, while the soldiers presented arms. As the cathedral bell tolled the last stroke of the hour the military band began to play "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was followed by "Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue." The cheering of the soldiers were joined by more than half of the people, who seemed greatly pleased and yelled "Viva los Americanos." The soldiers along almost the whole of the American line could see and had watched with alternating silence and cheers the entire proceeding.

GENERAL SHAFTER'S ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE VICTORY.

Having assigned soldiers to patrol and preserve order within the city, General Shafter and his staff returned to their quarters at camp, and the victorious commander, who two weeks before was almost disheartened, sent a dispatch announcing the formal surrender of Santiago. It was the first dispatch of the kind received at Washington from a foreign country for more than fifty years. The following extract from General Shafter's telegram sums up the situation:

"I have the honor to announce that the American flag has been this instant, 12 noon, hoisted over the house of the civil government in the city of Santiago. An immense concourse of people was present, a squadron of cavalry and a regiment of infantry presenting arms, and a band playing national airs. A light battery fired a salute of twenty-one guns.

"Perfect order is being maintained by the municipal government. The distress is very great, but there is little sickness in town, and scarcely any yellow fever.

"A small gunboat and about 200 seamen left by Cervera have surrendered to me. Obstructions are being removed from the mouth of the harbor.

"Upon coming into the city I discovered a perfect entanglement of defenses. Fighting as the Spaniards did the first day, it would have cost five thousand lives to have taken it.

"Battalions of Spanish troops have been depositing arms since daylight in the armory, over which I have a guard. General Toral formally surrendered the plaza and all stores at 9 A.M. About 7,000 rifles, 600,000 cartridges, and many fine modern guns were given up.

"This important victory, with its substantial fruits of conquest, was won by a loss of 1,593 men killed, wounded, and missing. Lawton, who had the severe fighting around El Caney, lost 410 men. Kent lost 859 men in the still more severe assault on San Juan and the other conflicts of the centre. The cavalry lost 285 men, many of whom fell at El Caney, and the feint at Aguadores cost thirty-seven men. One man of the Signal Corps was killed and one wounded. Trying as it is to bear the casualties of the first fight, there can be no doubt that in a military sense our success was not dearly won."

Thus within less than thirty days from the time Shafter's army landed upon Cuban soil he had received the surrender not only of the city of Santiago, but nearly the whole of the province of that name--or about one-tenth of the entire island.

THE WAR IN PORTO RICO.

It was General Miles' original plan after establishing a blockade of Cuban ports to open the war in Porto Rico, and make no general invasion of Cuba during the sickly season, but the enclosure of Cervera's fleet in the harbor of Santiago changed the conditions and made it necessary to move a military force to that point before going elsewhere.

Now that Santiago had surrendered, according to the original plan of General Miles, the attention of the army and navy was again turned to Porto Rico, and the work of fitting out expeditions to that island was begun at once. There were three expeditions sent. The first under General Miles sailed from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, July 21st; the second under General Ernst on the same day sailed from Charleston, S.C.; the third under General Brooke embarked at Newport News on July 26th. All of these expeditions, aggregating about 11,000 men, were convoyed by war-ships, and successfully landed. The first, under General Miles, reached Guanica at daylight on July 25th, where a Spanish force attempted to resist their landing, but a few well-directed shells from the Massachusetts, Gloucester, and Columbia soon put the enemy to flight. A party then went ashore and pulled down the Spanish flag from the blockhouse--the first trophy of war from Porto Rican soil. As the troops began to land the Spaniards opened fire upon them. The Americans replied with their rifles and machine guns, and the ships also shelled the enemy from the harbor. Five dead Spaniards were found after the firing had ceased. Not an American was touched.

Before nightfall all the troops were landed. The next day General Miles marched toward Ponce. Four men were wounded in a skirmish at Yauco on the way, but at Ponce, where General Ernst's expedition from Charleston met them and disembarked on July 28th, the Spaniards fled on the approach of the Americans, whom the mayor of the city and the people welcomed with joy, making many demonstrations in their honor and offering their services to hunt and fight the Spaniards. General Miles issued a proclamation to the people declaring clearly the United States' purpose of annexing them. The mayor of Ponce published this proclamation, with an appeal from himself to the people to salute and hail the American flag as their own, and to welcome and aid the American soldiers as their deliverers and brothers.

On August 4th General Brooke arrived, and the fleet commander, Captain Higginson, with little resistance opened the port of Arroyo, where they were successfully landed the next day, and General Haines' brigade captured the place with a few prisoners.

The Americans were then in possession of all the principal ports on the south coast, covering between fifty and sixty miles of that shore. A forward movement was inaugurated in three divisions--all of which we will consider together--the object of General Miles being to occupy the island and drive the Spanish forces before him into San Juan, and by the aid of the fleet capture them there in a body, though the Spanish forces numbered 8,000 regulars and 9,000 volunteers, against which were the 11,000 land forces of the Americans and also their fleet.

The town of Coamo was captured August 9th after half an hour of fighting by Generals Ernst and Wilson, the Americans driving the Spaniards from their trenches, and sustaining a loss of six wounded. On the 10th General Schwan encountered 1,000 Spaniards at Rosario River. This was the most severe engagement in Porto Rico. The Spaniards were routed, with what loss is unknown. The Americans had two killed and sixteen wounded.

On the 11th General Wilson moved on to Abonito and found the enemy strongly intrenched in the mountain fastnesses along the road. He ventured an attack with artillery, sustaining a loss of one man killed and four wounded. On pain of another attack he sent a messenger demanding the surrender of the town of Abonito; but the soldierly answer was sent back: "Tell General Wilson to stay where he is if he wishes to avoid the shedding of much blood." General Wilson concluded to delay until General Brooke could come up before making the assault, and, while thus waiting, the news of peace arrived.

Meantime General Brooke had been operating around Guayama, where he had five men wounded. At three o'clock, August 12th, the battle was just opening in good order, and a great fight was anticipated. The gunners were sighting their first pieces when one of the signal corps galloped up with the telegram announcing peace. "You came just fifteen minutes too soon. The troops will be disappointed," said General Brooke, and they were.

So ended the well-planned campaign of Porto Rico, in which General Miles had arranged, by a masterly operation with 11,000 men, the occupation of an island 108 miles long by thirty-seven broad. As it was, he had already occupied about one-third of the island with a loss of only three killed and twenty-eight wounded, against a preponderating force of 17,000 Spaniards.

After the signing of the protocol of peace General Brooke was left in charge of about half the forces in Porto Rico, pending a final peace, while General Miles with the other half returned to the United States, where he arrived early in September and was received with fitting ovations in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, at which latter city he again took up his quarters as the Commander of the American Army.

THE CONQUEST OF THE PHILIPPINES.

After Dewey's victory at Manila, already referred to, it became evident that he must have the co-operation of an army in capturing and controlling the city. The insurgents under General Aguinaldo appeared anxious to assist Admiral Dewey, but it was feared that he could not control them. Accordingly, the big monitor Monterey was started for Manila and orders were given for the immediate outfitting of expeditions from San Francisco under command of Major-General Wesley Merritt. The first expedition consisted of between 2,500 and 3,000 troops, commanded by Brigadier-General Anderson, carried on three ships, the Charleston, the City of Pekin, and the City of Sydney. This was the longest expedition (about 6,000 miles) on which American troops were ever sent, and the men carried supplies to last a year. The Charleston got away on the 22d, and the other two vessels followed three days later. The expedition went through safely, arriving at Manila July 1st. The Charleston had stopped on June 21st at the Ladrone Islands and captured the island of Guam without resistance. The soldiers of the garrison were taken on as prisoners to Manila and a garrison of American soldiers left in charge, with the stars and stripes waving over the fortifications.

The second expedition of 3,500 men sailed June 15th under General Greene, who used the steamer China as his flagship. This expedition landed July 16th at Cavite in the midst of considerable excitement on account of the aggressive movements of the insurgents and the daily encounters and skirmishes between them and the Spanish forces.

On June 23d the monitor Monadnoc sailed to further reinforce Admiral Dewey, and four days later the third expedition of 4,000 troops under General McArthur passed out of the Golden Gate amid the cheers of the multitude, as the others had done; and on the 29th General Merritt followed on the Newport. Nearly one month later, July 23d, General H.G. Otis, with 900 men, sailed on the City of Rio de Janeiro from San Francisco, thus making a total of nearly 12,000 men, all told, sent to the Philippine Islands.

General Merritt arrived at Cavite July 25th, and on July 29th the American forces advanced from Cavite toward Manila. On the 31st, while enroute, they were attacked at Malate by 3,000 Spaniards, whom they repulsed, but sustained a loss of nine men killed and forty-seven wounded, nine of them seriously. This was the first loss of life on the part of the Americans in action in the Philippines. The Spanish casualties were much heavier. On the same day General McArthur's reinforcements arrived at Cavite, and several days were devoted to preparations for a combined land and naval attack.

On August 7th Admiral Dewey and General Merritt demanded the surrender of the city within forty-eight hours, and foreign war-ships took their respective subjects on board for protection. On August 9th the Spaniards asked more time to hear from Madrid, but this was refused, and on the 13th a final demand was made for immediate surrender, which Governor-General Augusti refused and embarked with his family on board a German man-of-war, which sailed with him for Hong Kong. At 9.30 o'clock the bombardment began with fury, all of the vessels sending hot shot at the doomed city.

In the midst of the bombardment by the fleet American soldiers under Generals McArthur and Greene were ordered to storm the Spanish trenches which extended ten miles around the city. The soldiers rose cheering and dashed for the Spanish earthworks. A deadly fire met them, but the men rushed on and swept the enemy from their outer defenses, forcing them to their inner trenches. A second charge was made upon these, and the Spaniards retreated into the walled city, where they promptly sent up a white flag. The ships at once ceased firing, and the victorious Americans entered the city after six hours' fighting. General Merritt took command as military governor. The Spanish forces numbered 7,000 and the Americans 10,000 men. The loss to the Americans was about fifty killed, wounded, and missing, which was very small under the circumstances.

In the meantime the insurgents had formed a government with Aguinaldo as president. They declared themselves most friendly to American occupation of the islands, with a view to aiding them to establish an independent government, which they hoped would be granted to them. On September 15th they opened their republican congress at Malolos, and President Aguinaldo made the opening address, expressing warm appreciation of Americans and indulging the hope that they meant to establish the independence of the islands. On September 16th, however, in obedience to the command of General Otis, they withdrew their forces from the vicinity of Manila.

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AND THE PROTOCOL.

Precisely how to open the negotiations for peace was a delicate and difficult question. Its solution, however, proved easy enough when the attempt was made. During the latter part of July the Spanish government, through M. Jules Cambon, the French ambassador at Washington, submitted a note, asking the United States government for a statement of the ground on which it would be willing to cease hostilities and arrange for a peaceable settlement. Accordingly, on July 30th, a statement, embodying President McKinley's views, was transmitted to Spain, and on August 2d Spain virtually accepted the terms by cable. On August 9th Spain's formal reply was presented by M. Cambon, and on the next day he and Secretary Day agreed upon terms of a protocol, to be sent to Spain for her approval. Two days later, the 12th inst., the French ambassador was authorized to sign the protocol for Spain, and the signatures were affixed the same afternoon at the White House (M. Cambon signing for Spain and Secretary Day for the United States), in the presence of President McKinley and the chief assistants of the Department of State. The six main points covered by the protocol were as follows:

"1. That Spain will relinquish all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba.

"2. That Porto Rico and other Spanish islands in the West Indies, and an island in the Ladrones, to be selected by the United States, shall be ceded to the latter.

"3. That the United States will occupy and hold the city, bay, and harbor of Manila, pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall determine the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines.

"4. That Cuba, Porto Rico, and other Spanish islands in the West Indies shall be immediately evacuated, and that commissioners, to be appointed within ten days, shall, within thirty days from the signing of the protocol, meet at Havana and San Juan, respectively, to arrange and execute the details of the evacuation.

"5. That the United States and Spain will each appoint not more than five commissioners to negotiate and conclude a treaty of peace. The commissioners are to meet at Paris not later than October 1st.

"6. On the signing of the protocol, hostilities will be suspended and notice to that effect be given as soon as possible by each government to the commanders of its military and naval forces."

On the very same afternoon President McKinley issued a proclamation announcing on the part of the United States a suspension of hostilities, and over the wires the word went ringing throughout the length and breadth of the land and under the ocean that peace was restored. The cable from Hong Kong to Manila, however, had not been repaired for use since Dewey had cut it in May; consequently it was several days before tidings could reach General Merritt and Admiral Dewey; and meantime the battle of Manila, which occurred on the 13th, was fought.

On August 17th President McKinley named commissioners to adjust the Spanish evacuation of Cuba and Porto Rico, in accordance with the terms of the protocol. Rear-Admiral Wm. T. Sampson, Senator Matthew C. Butler, and Major-General James F. Wade were appointed for Cuba, and Rear-Admiral W.S. Schley, Brigadier-General Wm. W. Gordon, and Major-General John R. Brooke for Porto Rico. In due time Spain announced her commissioners, and, as agreed, they met in September and the arrangements for evacuation were speedily completed and carried out.

President McKinley appointed as the National Peace Commission, Secretary of State Wm. R. Day, Senator Cushman K. Davis of Minnesota, Senator Wm. P. Frye of Maine, Senator George Gray of Delaware, and Mr. Whitelaw Reid of New York. Secretary Day resigned his State portfolio September 16th, in which he was succeeded by Colonel John Hay, former Ambassador to England. With ex-Secretary Day at their head the Americans sailed from New York, September 17th, met the Spanish Commissioners at Paris, France, as agreed, and arranged the details of the final peace between the two nations. Thus ended the Spanish-American War.

HOME-COMING OF OUR SOLDIERS.

After Spain's virtual acceptance of the terms of peace contained in President McKinley's note of July 30th, it was deemed unnecessary to keep all the forces unoccupied in the fever districts of Cuba and the unsanitary camps of our own country; consequently the next day after receipts of Spain's message of August 2d, on August 3d, the home-coming was inaugurated by ordering all cavalry under General Shafter at Santiago to be transported to Montauk Point, Long Island, and on the 6th instant transports sailed bearing those who were to come north. These were followed rapidly by others from Santiago, and later by about half the forces from Porto Rico under General Miles, and others from the various camps, so that by the end of September, 1898, nearly half of the great army of 268,000 men had been mustered out of service or sent home on furlough.

It is a matter of universal regret that so many of our brave volunteers died of neglect in camps and on transports, and that fever, malaria, and exposure carried several times the number to their graves as were sent there by Spanish bullets. Severe criticisms have been lodged against the War Department for both lack of efficiency and neglect in caring for the comfort, health, and life of those who went forward at their country's call.

However, it must be remembered that the War Department undertook and accomplished a herculean task, and it could not be expected, starting with a regular force of less than 30,000 men, that an army of a quarter of a million could be built up out of volunteers who had to be collected, trained, clothed, equipped, and provisioned, and a war waged and won on two sides of the globe, in a little over three months, without much suffering and many mistakes.

THE TREATY OF PEACE.

December 10, 1898, was one of the most eventful days in the past decade--one fraught with great interest to the world, and involving the destiny of more than 10,000,000 of people. At nine o'clock on the evening of that day the commissioners of the United States and those of Spain met for the last time, after about eleven weeks of deliberation, in the magnificent apartments of the foreign ministry at the French capital, and signed the Treaty of Peace, which finally marked the end of the Spanish-American War.

This treaty transformed the political geography of the world by establishing the United States' authority in both hemispheres, and also in the tropics, where it had never before extended. It, furthermore, brought under our dominion and obligated us for the government of strange and widely isolated peoples, who have little or no knowledge of liberty and government as measured by the American standards. In this new assumption of responsibility America essayed a difficult problem, the solving of which involved results that could not fail to influence the destiny of our nation and the future history of the whole world.

On January 3, 1899, the Hon. John Hay, Secretary of State, delivered the Treaty of Peace to President McKinley, who, on January 4th, forwarded the same to the Senate of the United States with a view to its ratification. Below will be found the complete text of the treaty as submitted by the President.

ARTICLE I.--Spain relinquishes all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba.

And as the island is, upon its evacuation by Spain, to be occupied by the United States, the United States will, so long as such occupation shall last, assume and discharge the obligations that may under international law result from the fact of its occupation, for the protection of life and property.

ARTICLE II.--Spain cedes to the United States the island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and the island of Guam in the Marianas or Ladrones.

ARTICLE III.--Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, and comprehending the islands lying within the following line:

"A line running from west to east along or near the twentieth parallel of north latitude and through the middle of the navigable channel of Bachi, from the one hundred and eighteenth (118th) to the one hundred and twenty-seventh (127th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, thence along the one hundred and twenty-seventh (127th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich to the parallel of four degrees and forty-five minutes (4-45) north latitude to its intersection with the meridian of longitude one hundred and nineteen degrees and thirty-five minutes (119-35) east of Greenwich, thence along the meridian of longitude one hundred and nineteen degrees and thirty-five minutes (119-35) east of Greenwich to the parallel of latitude seven degrees and forty minutes (7-40) north, thence along the parallel of latitude seven degrees and forty minutes (7-40) north to its intersection with the one hundred and sixteenth (116th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, thence by a direct line to the intersection of the tenth (10th) degree parallel of north latitude with the one hundred and eighteenth (118th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, and thence along the one hundred and eighteenth (118th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich to the point of beginning."

The United States will pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) within three months after the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty.

ARTICLE IV.--The United States will, for the term of ten years from the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty, admit Spanish ships and merchandise to the ports of the Philippine Islands on the same terms as ships and merchandise of the United States.

ARTICLE V.--The United States will, upon the signature of the present treaty, send back to Spain at its own cost the Spanish soldiers taken as prisoners of war on the capture of Manila by the American forces. The arms of the soldiers in question shall be restored to them.

Spain will, upon the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty, proceed to evacuate the Philippines as well as the island of Guam, on terms similar to those agreed upon by the commissioners appointed to arrange for the evacuation of Porto Rico and other islands in the West Indies, under the protocol of August 12, 1898, which is to continue in force till its provisions are completely executed.

The time within which the evacuation of the Philippine Islands and Guam shall be completed shall be fixed by the two Governments. Stands of colors, uncaptured war-vessels, small arms, guns of all calibers, with their carriages and accessories, powder, ammunition, live stock, and materials and supplies of all kinds belonging to the land and naval forces of Spain in the Philippines and Guam, remain the property of Spain. Pieces of heavy ordnance, exclusive of field artillery, in the fortifications and coast defenses shall remain in their emplacements for the term of six months, to be reckoned from the exchange of ratifications of the treaty; and the United States may, in the meantime, purchase such material from Spain if a satisfactory agreement between the two Governments on the subject shall be reached.

ARTICLE VI.--Spain will, upon the signature of the present treaty, release prisoners of war and all persons detained or imprisoned for political offenses in connection with the insurrections in Cuba and the Philippines and the war with the United States.

Reciprocally, the United States will release all persons made prisoners of war by the American forces and will undertake to obtain the release of all Spanish prisoners in the hands of the insurgents in Cuba and the Philippines.

The Government of the United States will at its own cost return to Spain and the Government of Spain will at its own cost return to the United States, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, according to the situation of their respective homes, prisoners released or caused to be released by them, respectively, under this article.

ARTICLE VII.--The United States and Spain mutually relinquish all claims for indemnity, national and individual, of every kind, of either Government or of its citizens or subjects, against the other Government that may have arisen since the beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba, and prior to the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty, including all claims for indemnity for the cost of the war.

The United States will adjudicate and settle the claims of its citizens against Spain relinquished in this article.

ARTICLE VIII.--In conformity with the provisions of Articles I, II, and III of this treaty, Spain relinquishes in Cuba and cedes in Porto Rico and other islands in the West Indies, in the island of Guam and in the Philippine archipelago, all the buildings, wharves, barracks, forts, structures, public highways, and other immovable property, which, in conformity with law, belong to the public domain, and as such belong to the Crown of Spain.

And it is hereby declared that the relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, to which the preceding paragraph refers, cannot in any respect impair the property or rights which by law belong to the peaceful possession of property of all kinds, of provinces, municipalities, public or private establishments, ecclesiastical or civic bodies, or any other associations having legal capacity to acquire and possess property in the aforesaid territories renounced or ceded, or of private individuals, of whatsoever nationality such individuals may be.

The aforesaid relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, includes all documents exclusively referring to the sovereignty relinquished or ceded that may exist in the archives of the Peninsula. Where any document in such archives only in part relates to said sovereignty, a copy of such part will be furnished whenever it shall be requested. Like rules shall be reciprocally observed in favor of Spain in respect of documents in the archives of the islands above referred to.

In the aforesaid relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, are also included such rights as the Crown of Spain and its authorities possess in respect of the official archives and records, executive as well as judicial, in the islands above referred to, which relate to said islands or the rights and property of their inhabitants. Such archives and records shall be carefully preserved, and private persons shall, without distinction, have the right to require in accordance with law authenticated copies of the contracts, wills, and other instruments forming part of notarial protocols or files, or which may be contained in the executive or judicial archives, be the latter in Spain or in the islands aforesaid.

ARTICLE IX.--Spanish subjects, natives of the peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or may remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the right to sell or dispose of such property or of its proceeds, and they shall also have the right to carry on their industry, commerce, and professions, being subject in respect thereof to such laws as are applicable to other foreigners. In case they remain in the territory they may preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making before a court of record, within a year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance, in default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced it and to have adopted the nationality of the territory in which they may reside.

The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.

ARTICLE X.--The inhabitants of the territories over which Spain relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty shall be secure in the free exercise of their religion.

ARTICLE XI.--The Spaniards residing in the territories over which Spain by this treaty cedes or relinquishes her sovereignty shall be subject in matters civil as well as criminal to the jurisdiction of the courts of the country wherein they reside, pursuant to the ordinary laws governing the same; and they shall have the right to appear before such courts and to pursue the same course as citizens of the country to which the courts belong.

ARTICLE XII.--Judicial proceedings pending at the time of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty in the territories over which Spain relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty shall be determined according to the following rules:

1. Judgments rendered either in civil suits between private individuals or in criminal matters before the date mentioned and with respect to which there is no recourse or right of revenue under the Spanish law shall be deemed to be final, and shall be executed in due form by competent authority in the territory within which such judgments should be carried out.

2. Civil suits between private individuals which may on the date mentioned be undetermined shall be prosecuted to judgment before the court in which they may then be pending or in the court that may be substituted therefor.

3. Criminal actions pending on the date mentioned before the Supreme Court of Spain against citizens of the territory which by this treaty ceases to be Spanish shall continue under its jurisdiction until final judgment; but such judgment having been rendered, the execution thereof shall be committed to the competent authority of the place in which the case arose.

ARTICLE XIII.--The rights of property secured by copyrights and patents acquired by Spaniards in the Island de Cuba, and in Porto Rico, the Philippines, and other ceded territories, at the time of the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, shall continue to be respected. Spanish scientific, literary, and artistic works not subversive of public order in the territories in question shall continue to be admitted free of duty into such territories for the period of ten years, to be reckoned from the days of the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty.

ARTICLE XIV.--Spain will have the power to establish consular offices in the ports and places of the territories the sovereignty over which has been either relinquished or ceded by the present treaty.

ARTICLE XV.--The Government of each country will, for the term of ten years, accord to the merchant vessels of the other country the same treatment in respect of all port charges, including entrance and clearance dues, light dues and tonnage duties, as it accords to its own merchant vessels not engaged in the coastwise trade.

This article may at any time be terminated on six months' notice given by either Government to the other.

ARTICLE XVI.--It is understood that any obligations assumed in this treaty by the United States with respect to Cuba are limited to the time of its occupancy thereof; but it will, upon the termination of such occupancy, advise any government established in the island to assume the same obligations.

ARTICLE XVII.--The present treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and by Her Majesty, the Queen Regent of Spain, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington within six months from the date hereof, or earlier, if possible.

In faith whereof, we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this treaty and have hereunto affixed our seals.

Done in duplicate, at Paris, the tenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.

WILLIAM R. DAY,

WILLIAM P. FRYE,

WHITELAW REID,

B. DE ABARZUZA,

W.R. DE VILLA URRUTIA,

CUSHMAN K. DAVIS,

GEORGE GRAY,

EUGENIO M. RIOS,

J. DE GARNICA,

RAFAEL CERERO.

The Queen Regent of Spain signed the ratification of the Treaty of Peace on March 17, 1899, and the final act took place on the afternoon of April 11th, when copies of the final protocol were exchanged at Washington by President McKinley and the French ambassador, M. Cambon, representing Spain. The President immediately issued a proclamation of peace, and thus the Spanish-American War came to an official end. A few weeks later the sum of $20,000,000 was paid to Spain, in accordance with the treaty, as partial compensation for the surrender of her rights in the Philippines, and diplomatic relations between the Latin kingdom and the United States were resumed.

The territory which passes under the control of our government by the above treaty of peace has a combined area of about 168,000 square miles, equal to nine good States. It all lies within the tropics, where hitherto not an acre of our country has extended; and, for that reason, its acquisition is of the greatest commercial significance. These islands produce all tropical fruits, plants, spices, timbers, etc. Their combined population is upwards of 10,000,000 people, and among this vast number there are few manufactories of any kind. They are consumers or prospective consumers of all manufactured goods; they require the products of the temperate zone, and in return everything they produce is marketable in our country.

The Spanish forces withdrew from Cuba, December 31, 1898, and, on the following day, the Stars and Stripes was hoisted over Havana. The change of sovereignties in Porto Rico took place without trouble, but there has been some disturbance in Cuba, and it is evident that considerable time must elapse before peace will be fully restored and a stable government established in the island.

Though the war with Spain was closed, serious trouble broke out in the Philippines. Aguinaldo, who had headed most of the rebellions against Spain during the later years, refused to acknowledge the authority of the United States, and, rallying thousands of Filipinos around him, set on foot what he claimed was a war of independence. Our government sent a strong force of regulars and volunteers thither, all of whom acquitted themselves with splendid heroism and bravery, and defeated the rebels repeatedly, capturing strongholds one after the other, and, in fact, driving everything resistlessly before them. The fighting was of the sharpest kind, and our troops had many killed and wounded, though that of the enemy was tenfold greater. All such struggles, however, when American valor and skill are arrayed on one side, can have but one result; and, animated by our sense of duty, which demanded that a firm, equitable, and just government should be established in the Philippines, this beneficent purpose was certain to be attained in the end.

On March 3, 1899, President McKinley nominated Rear-Admiral George Dewey to the rank of full admiral, his commission to date from March 2d, and the Senate immediately and unanimously confirmed the nomination, which had been so richly earned. This hero, as modest as he is great, remained in the Philippines to complete his herculean task, instead of seizing the first opportunity to return home and receive the overwhelming honors which his countrymen were eagerly waiting to show him. Finally, when his vast work was virtually completed and his health showed evidence of the terrific and long-continued strain to which it had been subjected, he turned over his command, by direction of the government, to Rear-Admiral Watson, and, proceeding by a leisurely course, reached home in the autumn of 1899. The honors showered upon him by his grateful and admiring countrymen proved not only his clear title to the foremost rank among the greatest naval heroes of ancient and modern times, but attested the truth that the United States is not ungrateful, and that there is no reward too exalted for her to bestow upon those who have worthily won it.

POPULAR COMMANDERS IN THE FILIPINO WAR.

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Chapter XXVI

ADMINISTRATION OF McKINLEY (CONTINUED) 1897-1901.

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.

The Islands of Hawaii--Their Inhabitants and Products--City of Honolulu--History of Cuba--The Ten Years' War--The Insurrection of 1895-98--Geography and Productions of Cuba--Its Climate--History of Porto Rico--Its People and Productions--San Juan and Ponce--Location, Discovery, and History of the Philippines--Insurrections of the Filipinos--City of Manila--Commerce--Philippine Productions--Climate and Volcanoes--Dewey at Manila--The Ladrone Islands--Conclusion.

THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS "THE PARADISE OF THE PACIFIC."

The annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States, by a joint vote of Congress, July 7, 1898, marks a new era in the history of our country. It practically sounded the death-knell of the conservative doctrine of non-expansion beyond our own natural physical boundaries. The only precedent approaching this act, in our history, is the annexation of Texas. The Louisiana Territory, Florida, and Alaska were acquired by purchase; California, New Mexico, and a part of Colorado were obtained by cession from Mexico; Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Idaho by treaty with Great Britain. Texas alone was annexed. The fact, however, that it was a republic is the only circumstance which makes its case analogous to that of Hawaii. Texas lay between two large nations, and was obliged to seek union with one of them. It was within our own continent and inhabited largely by our own people. Hawaii marks our first advance into foreign lands, and ranges America for the first time among the nations whose policy is that of expansion, by territorial extensions, over the globe.

Hawaii is called the "Paradise of the Pacific," and there is little doubt that its climate, fertility and healthfulness justify the name. It is one of the few spots upon earth where one can almost, to use a slang phrase, "touch the button" and obtain any kind of weather he desires. Mark Twain's suggestion to those who go to these islands to find a congenial clime is about as practical as it is humorous--"Select your climate, mark your thermometer at the temperature desired, and climb until the mercury stops there." Everyone who visits Hawaii is charmed with the country, and never forgets its novelty, stupendous and delightful scenery, clear atmosphere, gorgeous sunlight, and profusion of fruits and flowers.

"No alien land in all the world," writes Mr. Clemens, "could so longingly and beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a life-time, as that has done. Other things leave me, but that abides. Other things change, but that remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing; its summer seas flash in the sun; the pulsing of its surf beats in my ear; I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud rack; I can feel the spirit of its woodland solitudes; I can hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago."

DISCOVERY AND LOCATION.

Captain Cook discovered the islands in January, 1778, and named them the Sandwich Islands, after Lord Sandwich; but the native name, Hawaii, is more generally used. There is good evidence that Juan Gaetano, in the year 1555--223 years before Cook's visit--landed upon their shores. Old Spanish charts and the traditions of the natives bear out this theory, but they were not made known to the world until Cook visited them. It is popularly believed that the original inhabitants of Hawaii came from New Zealand, though that island is some 4,000 miles southwest of them. The physical appearance of the people is very similar, and their languages are so much alike that a native Hawaiian and a native New Zealander, meeting for the first time, can carry on a conversation. Their ideas of the Deity and some of their religious customs are nearly the same. That the islands have been peopled for a long time is proven by the fact that human bones are found under lava beds and coral reefs where geologists declare they have lain for at least thirteen hundred years.

There are eight inhabited islands in the archipelago, Hawaii, Maui, Kahoolawi, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau, comprising an area of 6,700 square miles, a little less than that of the State of New Jersey, and about five hundred miles greater than the combined areas of Rhode Island and Connecticut. They extend from northwest to southeast, over a distance of about 380 miles, the several islands being separated by channels varying in width from six to sixty miles. They lie entirely within the tropics, not far from a direct line between San Francisco and Japan, 2,080 miles from San Francisco, which is nearer to them than any other point of land, except one of the Carolines. The largest and most southern island is Hawaii, which has given its name to the group.

THE HIGHEST AND LARGEST VOLCANOES.

The entire archipelago is of volcanic origin, but there are no active craters to be found at the present time, except two, on the island of Hawaii. Mauna Loa is the highest volcano in the world, being nearly 14,000 feet above the sea. It has an immense crater; but, while it still sends forth smoke and has a lake of molten lava at the bottom, there have been no eruptions for a number of years. Kilauea, the largest active volcano on the globe, is about sixteen miles from Mauna Loa, on one of its foothills, 4,000 feet above the sea, and is in a constant state of activity. Its last great eruption occurred in 1894. This volcano was described by the missionary Ellis in the year 1823, and hundreds of tourists visit it every year. Its crater is nine miles in circumference and several hundred feet deep. Under the conduct of competent guides the tourists descend into the crater and walk over the cool lava in places, while near them the hot flame and molten lava are spouting to the height of hundreds of feet.

The largest extinct volcano in the archipelago is on the island of Maui, the bottom of the crater measuring sixteen square miles. All of these stupendous volcanic mountains rise so gently on the western side that horsemen easily ride to their summits.

INHABITANTS OF THE ISLANDS.

When Cook visited Hawaii, he found the islands inhabited, according to his estimate, by 400,000 natives. Forty years later when the census was taken there were 142,000. These diminished one-half during the next fifty years, and the native population of the islands in 1897 was only 31,019. The total population by the last census, when the islands became a part of the United States, was 109,020, made up, in addition to the natives mentioned, of 24,407 Japanese, 21,616 Chinese, 12,191 Portuguese, and 3,086 Americans. The remainder were half-castes from foreign intermarriage with the natives, together with a small representation from England, Germany, and other European countries.

That the original Hawaiians must soon become extinct as a pure race is evident, though they have never been persecuted or maltreated. They are a handsome, strong-looking people, with a rich dark complexion, jet black eyes, wavy hair, full voluptuous lips, and teeth of snowy whiteness; but they are constitutionally weak, easily contract and quickly succumb to disease, and the only hope of perpetuating their blood seems to lie in mixing it by intermarriage with other races.

OLD TIMES IN HAWAII.

Prior to 1795, all the islands had separate kings, but in that and the following year the great king of Hawaii, Kamehameha, with cannon that he procured from Vancouver's ships, assaulted and subjugated all the surrounding kings, and since that time the islands have been under one government. Previous to this, the natives had been at war, according to their traditions, for three hundred years. The fierceness of their hand-to-hand conflicts, as described by their historians, has probably not been surpassed by those of any other people in the world. The four descendants of Kamehameha reigned until 1872, when the last of his line died childless. A new king was elected, who died within a year, and another was then elected by the people. It was to this last line that Queen Liliuokalani belonged, and she was deposed by the revolution of 1893, led by the American and European residents upon the islands. These patriots set up a provisional government and made repeated application for admission to the United States, the tender of the islands being finally accepted by a joint vote of Congress on July 7, 1898, since which time the Hawaiian Islands have been a part of our country.

The manners and customs of the native Hawaiians are most interesting, but space forbids a description of them here. Their religion was a gross form of idolatry, with many gods. Human sacrifice was freely practiced. They deified dead chiefs and worshiped their bones. The great king, Kamehameha I., though an idolater, was a most progressive monarch, and invited Vancouver, who went there in 1794, taking swine, cattle, sheep, and horses, together with oranges and other valuable plants, to bring over teachers and missionaries to teach his people "the white man's religion."

THE WORK OF AMERICAN MISSIONARIES.

But it was not until 1820, after the death of the great king, that the first missionaries arrived, and they came from America. The year previous, in 1819, Kamehameha II. had destroyed many of the temples and idols and forbidden idol worship in the islands; consequently, when the missionaries arrived they beheld the unprecedented spectacle of a nation without a religion. The natives were rapidly converted to Christianity. It was these American missionaries who first reduced the Hawaiian language to writing, established schools and taught the natives. As a result of their work, the Hawaiians are the most generally educated people, in the elementary sense, in the world. There is hardly a person in the islands, above the age of eight years, who cannot read and write. In spite of education, however, many of the ancient superstitions still exist, and some of the old stone temples are yet standing. What the United States will do with these heathen temples remains to be seen. The natives revere them as relics of their savage history, and as such they may be preserved.

Aside from the horrors of superstitions, the Hawaiians lead a happy life, full of amusements of various kinds on the land and water--for Hawaiian men, women and children live much of their time in the water. Infants are often taught the art of swimming before they can walk. The surf riding or swimming of the natives astonished Captain Cook more than any of their remarkable performances. The time selected was when a storm was tossing the waves high and the surf was furious. Then the men and women would dive through the surf, with narrow boards about nine inches wide and eight feet long, and, swimming a mile or more out to sea, mount on the crest of a huge billow, and sitting, kneeling or standing, with wild gesticulations, ride over the waves and breakers like gods or demons of the storm. This practice has now ceased to be indulged in. But the swimming of the Kanaka boys, who flock around incoming steamers, and dive after and catch coins which tourists throw into the water, like so many ducks diving after corn, shows what a degree of perfection the natatorial art has attained among the native Hawaiians. Sledging down the mountain sides, boxing, and tournament riding are other popular amusements; and, with the exception of boxing, the women compete with the men in the amusements.

PRODUCTS AND COMMERCE.

Sugar is king in Hawaii as wheat is in the Northwest. In 1890 there were 19,000 laborers--nearly one-fifth of the total population--engaged on sugar plantations. Ten tons to the acre have been raised on the richest lands. The average is over four tons per acre, but it requires from eighteen to twenty months for a crop to mature. Rice growing is also an important industry. It is raised in marsh lands, and nearly all the labor is done by Chinese, though they do not own the land. Coffee is happily well suited to the soil that is unfitted for sugar and rice, and the Hawaiian coffee is particularly fine, combining the strength of the Java with a delicate flavor of its own.

Diversified farming is coming more into vogue. Fruit raising will undoubtedly become one of the most important branches when fast steamers are provided for its transportation. Sheep and cattle raising must also prove profitable, since the animals require little feeding and need no housing.

"Almost all kinds of vegetables and fruits can be raised, many of those belonging to the temperate zones thriving on the elevated mountain slopes. Fruit is abundant; the guava grows wild in all the islands, and were the manufacture of jelly made from it carried on, on a large scale, the product could doubtless be exported with profit. Both bananas and pineapples are prolific, and there are many fruits and vegetables, which as yet have been raised only for local trade, which would, if cultivated for export, bring in rich returns.

"Of the total exports from the Hawaiian Islands in 1895, the United States received 99.04 per cent., and in the same year 79.04 per cent. of the imports to the islands were from the United States. The total value of the sugar sent to the United States in 1896 was $14,932,010; of rice, $194,903; of coffee, $45,444; and of bananas, $121,273."

THE CHIEF CITY.

Honolulu, the capital city, is to Hawaii what Havana is to Cuba, or better, what Manila is to the Philippine Islands. Here are concentrated the business, political and social forces that control the life and progress of the entire archipelago. This city of 30,000 inhabitants is situated on the south coast of Oahu, and extends up the Nuuanu Valley. It is well provided with street-car lines--which also run to a bathing resort four miles outside the city--a telephone system, electric lights, numerous stores, churches and schools, a library of over 10,000 volumes, and frequent steam communication with San Francisco. There are papers published in the English, Hawaiian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese languages, and a railroad is being built, of which thirty miles along the coast are already completed. Honolulu has also a well-equipped fire department and public water-works. The residence portions of the city are well laid out, the houses, many of which are very handsome, being surrounded by gardens kept green throughout the year. The climate is mild and even, and the city is a delightful and a beautiful place of residence. Hawaii is peculiarly an agricultural country, and Honolulu gains its importance solely as a distributing centre or depot of supplies. Warehouses, lumber yards, and commercial houses abound, but there is a singular absence of mills and factories and productive establishments. There are no metals or minerals, or as yet, textile plants or food plants, whose manufacture is undertaken in this unique city.

The Hawaiian Islands are, without question, on the threshold of a great industrial era, fraught with most potent results to the prosperity and development of that land. Its climate is delightful and healthful, and its soil so fertile that it will easily support 5,000,000 people.

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS (CONTINUED).

CUBA, "THE CHILD OF OUR ADOPTION."

Although Cuba is not a part or a possession of the United States, it has since the war with Spain, in 1898, come under the protection of this government, and is, therefore, entitled to a place in this volume. In the hand of Providence, this island became the doorway to America. It was here that Columbus landed, October 28, 1492. True, he touched earlier at one of the smaller islands to the north; but it was merely a halting before pushing on to Cuba. "Juana" Columbus called the island, in honor of Isabella's infant son. Afterward it was successively known as Fernandina, Santiago, and Ave Maria; but the simple natives, who were there to the number of 350,000, called it Cooba, and this name prevailed over the Spanish titles, as the island has finally prevailed over Spanish domination, and it has come under the protection of America with its Indian name, slightly changed to Cuba, remaining as the sole and only heritage we have of the simple aborigines who have utterly perished from the face of the earth under Spanish cruelty.

In 1494 Columbus visited Cuba a second time, and once again in 1502. In 1511 Diego Columbus, the son of the great discoverer, with a colony of between three and four hundred Spaniards, came, and in 1514 he founded the towns of Santiago and Trinidad. Five years later, in 1519, the present capital Havana, or Habana, was founded. The French reduced the city in 1538, practically demolishing the whole town. Under the governor, De Soto, it was rebuilt and fortified, the famous Morro Castle and the Punta, which are still standing, being built at that early date.

THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

The natives, whom Columbus found in Cuba, were agreeable in feature, and so amiable in disposition that they welcomed the white man with open arms, and, besides contributing food, readily gave up their treasures to please the Spaniards. Unlike the warlike cannibal tribes of the Lesser Antilles, known as the Caribs, they lived in comparative peace with one another, and had a religion which recognized the Supreme Being. Columbus held several conferences with these simple natives, who numbered, according to his estimate, from 350,000 to half a million souls, and his associations and dealings with them on his first visit were always friendly and of a mutually pleasing nature. But when he returned to Spain he left soldiers, who brutally maltreated them, until the natives rose in revolt and exterminated every white man. Even Columbus himself, in 1494, had to fight the Indians at the landing-place.

A salubrious climate, a fertile soil, and simple wants rendered it unnecessary for the native to do hard work; and although it is well proven that he did mine copper and traded in it with the mound builders of Florida, yet the native was not accustomed to arduous toil, and rebelled against it. This, perhaps, was unfortunate, for the perpetuity of his race at that time depended upon this very quality. The Spanish "friend" who came to the island was incapable of work. He neither would nor could, under his ethics of self-respect, abase himself to labor, so he proceeded to enslave the native to labor for him. The Cuban rebelled, and fled before the superior Spanish weapons from the coasts to the mountain fastnesses of the interior.

EXTERMINATION OF THE NATIVES.

Then began that cruel and long-continued war of extermination, of which history has recorded the most shocking details. The conquest was begun under Diego Columbus, the son of the great discoverer. The merciless Velasquez was his general, and the frightful cruelties which he inaugurated upon the simple natives have been continued for nearly four hundred years by his successors in the island, though the annihilation of the aboriginal tribes themselves was a brief and bloody work. Velasquez rode them down and trampled them--regardless of age or sex--under the iron hoofs of his war-horses, slashed them with swords, devastated their villages, and bore them away into slavery. The Cuban had no weapons; the mountain fastnesses could not hide him from his relentless pursuer. African slaves, who were brought to the island in Spanish ships, were armed and forced by their masters to chase the natives, and not a forest or mountain top was a place of refuge for these doomed children of the soil. One historian declares: "There is little doubt that before 1560 the whole of this native population had disappeared from the island. They were so completely exterminated that it is doubtful if the blood of their race was even remotely preserved in the mixed classes who followed African and Chinese introduction."

A PERIOD OF REST.

For nearly two hundred years after the extermination of the natives, Cuba rested without a struggle in the arms of Spain. The early settlers engaged almost wholly in pastoral pursuits. Tobacco was indigenous to the soil, and in 1580 the Cuban planters began its culture. Later, sugar-cane was imported from the Canaries, and found to be a fruitful and profitable crop. The beginning of the culture of sugar demanded more laborers, and the importation of additional slaves was the result. In 1717, Spain attempted to make a monopoly of the tobacco culture, and the first Cuban revolt occurred. In 1723 a second uprising took place, because of an oppressive government; but these early revolts against tyranny were insignificant as compared with those of the last half-century.

In 1762, the city of Havana was captured by the English, with an expedition commanded by Lord Albemarle, but his fighting troops were principally Americans under the immediate command of Generals Phineas Lyman and Israel Putnam of Revolutionary fame. The story of Putnam's command in this war is thrilling and sad. After first suffering shipwreck and many hardships in reaching the island, they lay before Havana, where Spanish bullets and fever almost annihilated the whole command. Scarcely more than one in fifty lived to return to America. By the Treaty of Paris, 1763, Cuba was unfortunately restored to Spain, and it was afterward that her troubles with the "Mother Country," as Spain affectionately called herself to all her provinces, began. The hand of oppression for one and a quarter centuries relaxed not its grasp, and year by year grew heavier and more galling.

DISCONTENT AND INSURRECTIONS.

Some of the most prolific seeds of modern revolutions may be said to have been sown when the African slave trade assumed important proportions, in 1791. About the same time began a large importation of Chinese coolies, for which Cuba paid a bounty of $400 apiece to the importer. These coolies bound themselves to the Spaniards for eight years, for which they were paid $4.00 per month as wages. The new influx of labor and the coming of Las Casas as Captain-General to Cuba, in 1790, mark the beginning of Cuba's great period of prosperity. This enterprising ruler introduced numerous public improvements, established botanical gardens and schools of agriculture, with a view to developing and increasing Cuba's resources and commercial importance. Owing to his wise administration, Cuba prospered and remained undisturbed for a long while. An insurrection occurred among the slaves in 1812, which was promptly put down with characteristic cruelty, and the blacks remained "good niggers" for a third of a century. By the year 1844, the slave trade with Cuba had grown to enormous proportions. In that year alone, statistics tell us, 10,000 slaves were landed from Africa upon the island. Another wild and fanatical insurrection occurred the same year among them, which, as before, ended in failure. Seventy-eight of the rebels were shot, and many otherwise punished. By 1850, the slaves had so multiplied and the importation had been so large that the census showed there were nearly 500,000 on the island.

Meantime, in 1823 and 1827, insurrections were attempted on the part of the Creoles (descendants of Spanish and French settlers) and other free Cubans. They failed, and the blood of the martyrs was seed in the ground. Revolutionist and enslaved insurrectionist gradually drifted together. They had a common cause--to struggle for freedom against oppression. The bondsman was little or no worse off than the Creoles, Chinese coolies, and free negroes--all native-born Cubans were shut out from the enjoyment of true citizenship. They must do the work and pay the tribute, but Spaniards, born in Spain, were alone allowed to hold office of profit or trust under the government; and they looked with inexpressible contempt upon the rest of the population, and, with the backing of the army, preserved their domination in spite of their inferior numbers. The governor-general was appointed from Spain and held office from three to five years, and was expected to steal or extort himself rich in that time. It is said not one governor-general ever failed to do so.

THE TEN YEARS' WAR.

The first long and determined struggle of the oppressed people of Cuba for liberty began in 1868. In that year a revolution broke out in Spain, and the patriots seized the opportunity, while the mother country was occupied at home, for an heroic effort to liberate themselves. They rose first at Yara, in the district of Bayamo, and on October 10th of that year made a declaration of independence. Eight days later the city of Bayamo was taken by the patriots, and early in November they defeated a force sent against them from Santiago. The majority of the South American republics hastened to recognize the Cubans as belligerents; but--though they held their own in guerrilla warfare against the Spanish forces for ten years, fighting in the forests and bravely resisting all the efforts of Spain to subdue them--there was not one great power in the world willing to extend to the patriots the recognition of belligerent rights. The cruelty of the Spaniards toward the soldiers they captured, and to all inhabitants who sympathized with the patriots' cause, was equaled only by the courage, fortitude, and exalted patriotism which animated their victims. The following instances, selected from scores that might be cited, are given in the Spaniards' own words, translated, verbatim, into English:

SPANISH TESTIMONY OF HORRORS PRACTICED.

Jacob Rivocoba, under date of September 4, 1896, writes:

"We captured seventeen, thirteen of whom were shot outright; on dying they shouted, 'Hurrah for free Cuba! hurrah for independence!' A mulatto said, 'Hurrah for Cespedes!' On the following day we killed a Cuban officer and another man. Among the thirteen that we shot the first day were found three sons and their father; the father witnessed the execution of his sons without even changing color, and when his turn came he said he died for the independence of his country. On coming back we brought along with us three carts filled with women and children, the families of those we had shot; and they asked us to shoot them, because they would rather die than live among Spaniards."

Pedro Fardon, another officer, who entered entirely into the spirit of the service he honored, writes on September 22, 1869:

"Not a single Cuban will remain in this island, because we shoot all those we find in the fields, on the farms, and in every hovel."

And, again, on the same day, the same officer sends the following good news to his old father:

"We do not leave a creature alive where we pass, be it man or animal. If we find cows, we kill them; if horses, ditto; if hogs, ditto; men, women, or children, ditto; as to the houses, we burn them: so every one receives his due--the men in balls, the animals in bayonet-thrusts. The island will remain a desert."

These atrocities were perpetrated not alone by the common soldier. In fact, the above reports come from men who were officers in the Spanish army, and they show that such actions were approved by the highest authority. A well-authenticated account assures us that General Count Balmaceda himself went on one occasion to the home of a patriot family, Mora by name, to arrest or kill the patriots he had heard were stopping there; but, finding the men all absent, he wreaked his vengeance and thirst for blood by butchering the two Mora sisters and burning the house over their bodies.

PEACE AND FAIR PROMISES.

At last, Spain, seeing that she could neither induce the Cubans to surrender nor draw them into a decisive battle; and finding, furthermore, that her army of 200,000 men was likely to be annihilated by death, disease, and patriot bullets, made overtures, which, by promising many privileges to the people that they had not before enjoyed, effected a peace. As a result of this war, slavery was abolished in the island; but Spain's promises for fair and equitable government were repudiated, and the civil powers became more extortionate and severe than ever. This war laid a heavy debt upon Spain, and Cuba was taxed inordinately. The people soon saw that they had been duped. The world looked upon Cuba and Spain as at peace. To the outsider the surface was placid, but underneath "the waters were troubled." Such heroic spirits as Generals Calixto Garcia, Jose Marti, Antonio Maceo, and Maximo Gomez, leaders in the ten years' struggle, still lived, though scattered far apart, and in their hearts bore a load of righteous wrath against their treacherous foe. While such men lived and such conditions existed another conflict was inevitable.

THE LAST GREAT STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM.

It was on February 24, 1895, that the last revolution of the Cuban patriots began. Spain had heard the mutterings of the coming storm, and hoped to stay it by visiting with severe punishment every Cuban suspected of patriotic affiliations. Antonio Maceo, a mulatto, but a man of fortune and education, a veteran of the ten years' war, and a Cuban by birth, was banished to San Domingo. There were other exiles in Key West, New York, and elsewhere. Jose Marti was the leading spirit in forming the Cuban Junta in New York and organizing revolutionary clubs among Cubans everywhere. Antonio Maceo was the first of the old leaders in the field. He went secretly to Cuba and began organizing the insurrectionists, and when war was declared the flag of the new republic, bearing a lone white star in a red field, was flung to the breeze. Captain-General Calleja declared martial law in the insurgents' vicinity, and troops were hastily summoned and sent from Spain. The revolutionists from the start fought by guerrilla methods of warfare, dashing upon the unsuspecting Spanish towns and forces, and escaping to the mountains before the organized Spaniards could retaliate.

Jose Marti and Jose Maceo--brother of the general--were prompt to join the active forces, and on April 13, 1895, General Maximo Gomez, a native of San Domingo, came over and was made commander of the insurgent forces. This grizzled old hero, with nearly seventy years behind him, was at once an inspiration and a host within himself. An army of 6,000 men was ready for his command, and the revolution took on new life and began in all its fury. On May 19th the insurgents met their first great disaster, when Jose Marti was led into an ambush and killed. But his blood was like a seed planted, from which thousands of patriots sprang up for the ranks. Within a few days there were 10,000 ill-armed but determined men in the field. They had no artillery, nearly half were without guns, and there was little ammunition for those who were armed.

THE PLANS OF CAMPOS THWARTED.

In April, 1895, Captain-General Calleja was replaced by Martinez Campos, the commander in the preceding war, and one of the ablest of the Spanish generals. He sought to conciliate the people and alleviate the prevailing distress, but the rebels in arms had lost all faith in Spanish honor, while the veteran Gomez proved so wily that Campos could neither capture him nor force him into an engagement. Everywhere Gomez marched he gathered new patriots. Near the city of Bayamo, Maceo attacked Campos, and the Spanish commander barely escaped with his life. He was besieged in Bayamo, and had to stay there until 10,000 soldiers were sent to escort him home. That was the last of Campos' fighting. By August, Spain had spent $21,300,000 and lost 20,000 men by death, and 39,000 additional soldiers had been brought into the island, 25,000 of them the flower of the Spanish army, and she was also forced to issue $120,000,000 bonds, which she sold at a great sacrifice, to carry on the war.

The patriots met September 13, 1895, at Camaguey and formed their government by adopting a constitution and electing a president and other state officers. This body formally conferred upon Gomez the commission of commander-in-chief of the army. Before the close of the month, there were 30,000 rebels in the field. Spanish war-ships patroled the coast, but the insurgents held the whole interior of Santiago province, and government forces dared not venture away from the sea. The same was true of Santa Clara and Puerto Principe. Matanzas was debatable ground; but Gomez made bold raids into the very vicinity of Havana. Spain continued to increase her army, till by the year 1898 it numbered about 200,000 men.

As if the cup of Cuba's sorrow were not sufficiently bitter, or her long-suffering patriots had not drunk deep enough of its gall, General Campos was recalled, and General Valeriano Weyler (nicknamed "The Butcher") arrived in February, 1896. He promptly inaugurated the most bitter and inhuman policy in the annals of modern warfare. It began with a campaign of intimidation, in which his motto was "Subjugation or Death." He established a system of espionage that was perfect, and the testimony of the spy was all the evidence he required. He heeded no prayer and knew no mercy. His prisons overflowed with suspected patriots, and his sunrise executions, every morning, made room for others. It was thus that General Weyler carried on the war from his palace against the unarmed natives, his 200,000 soldiers seldom securing a shot at the insurgents, who were continually bushwhacking them with deadly effect, while yellow fever carried them off by the thousands. How many lives Weyler sacrificed in that dreadful year will never be known. How many suspects he frightened into giving him all their gold for mercy and then coldly shot for treason, no record will disclose; but the crowded, unmarked graves on the hillside outside Havana are mute but eloquent witnesses of his infamy.

Under these conditions, Gomez declared that all Cubans must take sides. They must be for or against. It was no time for neutrals and there could be no neutral ground, so he boldly levied forced contributions upon planters unfavorable to his cause, and extended protection to those who befriended the patriots. Exasperated by Weyler's atrocities upon non-combatant patriots, he dared to destroy or confiscate the property of Spanish sympathizers.

THE DEATH OF GENERAL MACEO.

On the night of December 4, 1896, the insurgents suffered an irreparable loss in the death of General Maceo, who was led into an ambush and killed, it is believed, through the treachery of his staff physician. Eight brothers of Maceo had previously given their lives for Cuban freedom.

At the close of 1896, the island was desolate to an extreme perhaps unprecedented in modern times. The country was laid waste and the cities were starving. Under the pretext of protecting them, Weyler gathered the non-combatants into towns and stockades, and it is authoritatively stated that 200,000 men, women, and children of the "reconcentrados," as they were called, died of disease and starvation. The insurgents remained masters of the island except along the coasts. The only important incident of actual warfare was the capture of Victoria de las Tunas, in Santiago province, by General Garcia at the head of 3,000 men, after three days' fighting. In this battle the Spanish commander lost his life and forty per cent. of his troops were killed or wounded; the rest surrendered to Garcia, and the rebels secured by their victory 1,000 rifles, 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and two Krupp guns.

In the spring of 1898 the United States intervened. The story of our war with Spain for Cuba's freedom is elsewhere related.

Spain has paid dearly for her supremacy in Cuba during the last third of the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding the fact that the revenue from Cuba for several years prior to the Ten Years' War of 1868-78 amounted to $26,000,000 annually--about $18 for every man, woman, and child in the island--$20,000,000 of it was absorbed in Spain's official circles at Havana, and "the other $6,000,000 that the Spanish government received," says one historian, "was hardly enough to pay transportation rates on the help that the mother country had to send to her army of occupation." Consequently, despite this enormous tax, a heavy debt accumulated on account of the island, even before the Ten Years' War began.

FEARFUL COST OF THE WAR.

At the close of the Ten Years' War (1878) Spain had laid upon the island a public debt of $200,000,000, and required her to raise $39,000,000 of revenue annually, an average at that time of nearly $30 per inhabitant. But Spain's own debt had, also, increased to nearly $2,000,000,000, and during this Ten Years' War she had sent 200,000 soldiers and her favorite commanders to the island, only about 50,000 of whom ever returned. According to our Consular Report of July, 1898, when the last revolution began, 1895, the Cuban debt had reached $295,707,264. The interest on this alone imposed a burden of $9.79 per annum upon each inhabitant. During the war, Spain had 200,000 troops in the island, and the three and one-half years' conflict cost her the loss of nearly 100,000 lives, mostly from sickness, and, as yet, unknown millions of dollars. The real figures of the loss of life and treasure seem incredible when we consider that Cuba is not larger than our State of Pennsylvania, and that her entire population at the beginning of the war was about one-fourth that of the State named, or a little less than that of the city of Chicago alone. Yet Spain, with an army larger than the combined northern and southern forces at the battle of Gettysburg, was unable to overcome the insurgents, who had never more than one-fourth as many men enlisted. But she harassed, tortured, and starved to death within three years, perhaps, over 500,000 non-combatant citizens in her attempt to subjugate the patriots, and was in a fair way to depopulate the whole island when the United States at last intervened to succor them.

THE FUTURE OF THE ISLAND.

What the future of Cuba may be under new conditions of government remains to be seen. Certainly, in all the world's history few sadder or more devastated lands have gathered their remnants of population upon the ashes of their ruins and turned a hopeful face to the future.

But the soil, the mineral and the timber not even Spanish tyranny could destroy; and in these lie the hope, we might say the sure guarantee, of Cuba's future. In wealth of resources and fertility of soil, Cuba is superior to all other tropical countries, and these fully justify its right to the title "Pearl of the Antilles," first given it by Columbus. Under a wise and secure government, its possibilities are almost limitless. Owing to its location at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, which it divides into the Yucatan and Florida channels, on the south and north, the island has been termed the "Key to the Gulf of Mexico," and on its coat of arms is emblazoned a key, as if to imply its ability to open or close this great sea to the commerce of the world.

Cuba extends from east to west 760 miles, is 21 miles wide in its narrowest part and 111 miles in the widest, with an average width of 60 miles. It has numerous harbors, which afford excellent anchorage. The area of the island proper is 41,655 square miles (a little larger than the State of Ohio); and including the Isle of Pines and other small points around its entire length, numbering in all some 1,200, there are 47,278 square miles altogether in Cuba and belonging to it. The island is intersected by broken ranges of mountains, which gradually increase in height from west to east, where they reach an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet. The central and western portions of the island are the most fertile, while the principal mineral deposits are in the mountains of the eastern end. In Matanzas and other central provinces, the well-drained, gently sloping plains, diversified by low, forest-clad hills, are especially adapted to sugar culture, and the country under normal conditions presents the appearance of vast fields of cane. The western portion of the island is also mountainous, but the elevations are not great, and in the valleys and along the fertile slopes of this district is produced the greater part of the tobacco for which the island is famous.

FERTILITY OF SOIL AND ITS PRODUCTS.

The soil of the whole island seems well-nigh inexhaustible. Except in tobacco culture, fertilizers are never used. In the sugar districts are found old canefields that have produced annual crops for a hundred years without perceptible impoverishment of the soil. Besides sugar and tobacco, the island yields Indian corn, rice, manioc (the plant from which tapioca is prepared), oranges, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, guava, and all other tropical fruits, with many of those belonging to the temperate zone. Raw sugar, molasses, and tobacco are the chief products, and, with fruits, nuts, and unmanufactured woods, form the bulk of exports, though coffee culture, formerly active, is now being revived, and its fine quality indicates that it must in time become one of the most important products of the island.

As a sugar country, Cuba takes first rank in the world. Mr. Gallon, the English Consul, in his report to his government in 1897 upon this Cuban crop, declared: "Of the other cane-sugar countries of the world, Java is the only one which comes within 50 per cent. of the amount of sugar produced annually in Cuba in normal times, and Java and the Hawaiian Islands are the only ones which are so generally advanced in the process of manufacture." Our own Consul, Hyatt, in his report of February, 1897, expresses the belief that Cuba is equal to supplying the entire demands of the whole western hemisphere with sugar--a market for 4,000,000 tons or more, and requiring a crop four times as large as the island has ever yet produced. Those who regard this statement as extravagant should remember that Cuba, although founded and settled more than fifty years before the United States, has nearly 14,000,000 acres of uncleared primeval forest-land, and is capable of easily supporting a population more than ten times that of the present. In fact, the Island of Java, not so rich as Cuba, and of very nearly the same area, with less tillable land, has over 22,000,000 inhabitants as against Cuba's--perhaps at this time--not more than 1,200,000 souls.

MINERAL AND TIMBER RESOURCES.

The mineral resources of Cuba are second in importance to its agricultural products. Gold and silver are not believed to exist in paying quantities, but its most valuable mineral, copper, seems to be almost inexhaustible. The iron and manganese mines, in the vicinity of Santiago, are of great importance, the ores being rated among the finest in the world. Deposits of asphalt and mineral oils are also found.

The third resource of Cuba in importance is its forest product. Its millions of acres of unbroken woodlands are rich in valuable hard woods, suitable for the finest cabinet-work and ship-building, and also furnish many excellent dye woods. Mahogany, cedar, rosewood, and ebony abound. The palm, of which there are thirty-odd species found in the island, is one of the most characteristic and valuable of Cuban trees.

CITIES AND COMMERCE.

The commerce of Cuba has been great in the past, but Spanish laws made it expensive and oppressive to the Cubans. Its location and resources, with wise government, assure to the island an enormous trade in the future. There are already four cities of marked importance to the commercial world: Havana with a population of 250,000, Santiago with 71,000, Matanzas with 29,000, and Cienfuegos with 30,000, are all seaport cities with excellent harbors, and all do a large exporting business. Add to these Cardenas with 25,000, Trinidad with 18,000, Manzanillo with 10,000, and Guantanamo and Baracoa, each with 7,000 inhabitants, we have an array of ten cities such as few strictly farming countries of like size possess. Aside from cigar and cigarette making, there is little manufacturing in Cuba; but fruit canneries, sugar refineries, and various manufacturing industries for the consumption of native products will rapidly follow in the steps of good government. Hence, in the field of manufacturing this island offers excellent inducements to capital.

SEASONS AND CLIMATE.

Like all tropical countries, Cuba has but two seasons, the wet and the dry. The former extends from May to October, June, July, and August being the most rainy months. The dry season lasts from November to May. This fact must go far toward making the island more and more popular as a winter health resort. The interior of the island is mountainous, and always pleasantly cool at night, while on the highlands the heat in the day is less oppressive than in New York and Pennsylvania during the hottest summer weather; consequently, when once yellow fever, which now ravages the coasts of the island on account of its defective sanitation, is extirpated, as it doubtless will be under the new order of things, Cuba will become the seat of many winter homes for wealthy residents of the United States. Even in the summer, the temperature seldom rises above 90 deg., while the average for the year is 77 deg. At no place, except in the extreme mountainous altitude, is it ever cold enough for frost.

THE EVACUATION OF HAVANA.

The complete transfer of authority in the island of Cuba from Spain to the United States took place on Sunday, January 1, 1899. At noon on that day Captain-General Castellanos and staff met the representatives of the United States in the hall of his palace, and with due formality and marked Spanish courtesy, in the name of the King and Queen Regent of Spain, delivered possession of Cuba to General Wade, head of the American Evacuation Committee, and he in turn transferred the same to General Brooke, who had been appointed by President McKinley as Military Governor of the Division of Cuba. No unpleasant incident marred the occasion. General Castellanos spoke with evident yet becoming emotion on so important an occasion. Three Cuban generals were present, who, at General Castellanos' request, were presented to him, and the Spaniard said, with marked grace and evident sincerity, "I am sorry, gentlemen, that we are enemies, being of the same blood;" to which one of the Cuban patriots courteously responded, with commendable charity, "We fought only for Cuba, and now that she is free we are no longer enemies."

The formal transfer had scarcely taken place within the palace hall when the flag of Spain was lowered from Morro Castle, Cabanas Fortress, and all the public buildings, and the stars and stripes instantly arose in its place on the flagpoles of these old and historic buildings. As its graceful folds floated gently out upon the breeze, the crowds from the streets cheered, the band played the most appropriate of all airs, while voices in many places in the throng, catching up the tune, sang the inspiring words of the "Star-Spangled Banner."

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS (CONTINUED).

BEAUTIFUL PORTO RICO.

It was in November of the year 1493, on his second voyage to the New World, that Columbus landed upon a strange island in quest of water for his ships. He found it in abundance, and called the place Aquadilla--the watering place. As he had done at Cuba the year before, the great discoverer held pleasant conferences with the natives, and with due ceremony took possession of the island for his benefactors and sovereigns--Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. From that day until it was ceded to the United States in 1898, as a result of the Spanish-American War, Porto Rico remained one of the most attractive and valuable of Spain's West Indian possessions.

The simple and friendly natives gladly welcomed their Spanish invaders, who, with the same promptness which was manifested in Cuba, proceeded to enslave and exterminate them. In 1510, Ponce de Leon founded the first settlement on the site of the present village of Puerto Viejo. The next year the noted invader founded San Juan, the present capital of the island. One of the most interesting sights of this old city to-day is the Casa Blanca, built at that period as the palatial residence of Ponce de Leon. It was there, perhaps, after he had finished his conquest of the island, that this famous old Spaniard listened to the wonderful story of the natives, who served him as slaves, concerning the mysterious country over the sea which had hidden in its forests a fountain wherein an old man might plunge and be restored to all the vigor of youth. It was there and thus, perhaps, while sitting at leisure in his palace, that de Leon planned the voyage in search of that "fountain of youth" which resulted in the discovery and exploration of Florida.

ANCIENT INHABITANTS.

As to the number of natives in Porto Rico when the Spaniards came old chroniclers differ. Some say there were 500,000, others 300,000. It is all surmise. Probably the latter figure is an over-estimate, for Cuba, more than ten times as large, was not thought to contain more than half a million inhabitants at most. A detailed account of their manners and customs was written by one of the early Spaniards, and part of it is translated by the British Consul, Mr. Bidwell, in his Consular Report of 1880. Some of the statements in this old book are most peculiar and interesting. Within the last forty years archaeologists have discovered many stone axes, spear-heads and knives, stone and clay images, and pieces of earthenware made by the aboriginal Porto Ricans, and these are preserved in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, in Berlin, and elsewhere. It is curious that none of these remains had been found prior to 1856. On the banks of the Rio Grande there still stands, also, a rude stone monument, with strange designs carved upon its surface.

From the earliest times, the island, with its rich produce and commerce, was the prey of robbers. The fierce cannibal Caribs from the south made expeditions to it before the white men came; and for many decades after the Spanish conquest it suffered attacks from pirates by sea and brigands upon land, who found easy hiding within its deep forests.

ATTACKS AND INVASIONS BY FOREIGN FORCES.

In 1595, San Juan was sacked by the English under Drake, and again, three years later, by the Duke of Cumberland. In 1615, Baldwin Heinrich, a Dutchman, lost his life in an attack upon the governor's castle, and several of his ships were destroyed by a hurricane. The English failed to capture it, fifty-three years later; and Abercrombie tried it again in 1797, but had to give up the undertaking after a three days' siege. It was one hundred and one years after Abercrombie's siege before another hostile fleet appeared before and bombarded San Juan. That was done by Admiral Sampson, May 12, 1898, with the United States squadron of modern ironclad battleships and cruisers. In this engagement Morro Castle, which, though impregnable a hundred years before, was unable to withstand modern guns, and was in a large part reduced to ruins.

General Nelson A. Miles landed his United States troops on the island in July, 1898, and on the 12th of August, before he completed his conquest, hostilities were closed by the protocol of peace, and amid the rejoicing of the natives "Beautiful Porto Rico" became a province of the United States. The one and only attempt the Porto Ricans ever made to throw off the Spanish yoke was in 1820; but conditions for hiding from the soldiers were not so good as the Cubans enjoyed in their large island, and Spanish supremacy was completely re-established by 1823.

THE ISLAND AND ITS POPULATION.

Porto Rico is at once the most healthful and most densely populated island of the West Indies. It is almost rectangular in form--100 miles long and 36 broad. Its total area is about 3,600 square miles--a little larger than the combined areas of Rhode Island and Delaware. Its population, unlike that of Cuba, has greatly increased within the last fifty years. In 1830, it numbered 319,000; in 1887, 813,937--about 220 people to the square mile, a density which few States of the Union can equal. About half of its population are negroes or mulattoes, who were introduced by the Spaniards as slaves in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Among the people of European origin the most numerous are the Spaniards, with many Germans, Swedes, Danes, Russians, Frenchmen, Chuetos (descendants from the Moorish Jews), and natives of the Canary Islands. There are also a number of Chinese, while the Gibaros, or small land-holders and day-laborers of the country districts, are a curious old Spanish cross with the aboriginal Indian blood. In this class the aborigines are more fortunate than the original Cubans in having even a trace of their blood preserved.

The island is said to be capable of easily supporting three times its present population, the soil is so universally fertile and its resources are so well diversified. Though droughts occur in certain parts of the island, it is all extremely well watered, by more than one thousand streams, enumerated on the maps, and the dry sections have a system of irrigation which may be operated very effectually and with little expense. Of the 1,300 streams, forty-seven are considerable rivers.

TIMBER IN ABUNDANCE AND VARIETY.

Forests still cover all the elevated parts of the hill country of the interior, the inhabitants living mostly along the coast. The main need to set the interior teeming with a thrifty and healthy population is a system of good roads. The interior, with the exception of a few extensive savannas, is one vast expanse of rounded hills, covered with such rich soil that they may be cultivated to their summits. At present these forests are accessible only by mule tracks. "The timber of the island," says our official report, "comprises more than five hundred varieties of trees, and in the more elevated regions the vegetation of the temperate zones is not unknown. On the hills is found a luxuriant and diversified vegetation, tree-ferns and mountain palms being abundant. At a lower level grow many varieties of trees noted for their useful woods, such as the mahogany, cedar, walnut, and laurel. The mammee, guaiacum, and copal, besides other trees and shrubs valuable for their gum, flourish in all parts of the island. The coffee tree and sugar cane, both of which grow well at an altitude of a thousand feet or more, were introduced into the island--the former from Martinique in 1722, the latter from the Canaries, through Santo Domingo. Tobacco grows easily in the lowlands, while maize, pineapples, bananas, etc., are all prolific. The banana and plantain bear fruit within ten months after planting, and like the cocoa palm, live through an ordinary life-time."

MINERALS AND MINING.

"The mineral resources of the island," says our consul in his report, "have been very little developed, the only mineral industry of any importance being the salt works situated at Guanica, Salinas, and Cabo Rojo. Sulphides of copper and magnetic oxides of iron are found in large quantities, and formerly gold to a considerable extent was found in many of the streams. At present the natives still wash out nuggets by the crude process in use in the time of Ponce de Leon. Marble, carbonates, lignite, and amber are also present in varying quantities, and hot springs and mineral waters occur, the best known ones being at Coamo, near Santa Isabel."

COMMERCE.

The commerce of Porto Rico amounted, in 1896, to $36,624,120, exceeding the records of all previous years; the increase, no doubt, being largely due to the unsettled condition of Cuba. The value of the exports for the same year was, for the first time for more than a decade, slightly in excess of that of the imports; the former being valued at $18,341,430, the latter at $18,282,690. The chief exports from the island are agricultural products. The principal articles are sugar, coffee, molasses, and tobacco; while rice, wheat, flour, and manufactured articles are among the chief imports. The value of the sugar and molasses exported to the United States during the ten years from 1888 to 1897 made up 95 per cent. of the total value of the exports to that country. Fruits, nuts, and spices are also exported to a small extent. Of the non-agricultural exports the most important are perfumery and cosmetics; chemicals, drugs, and dyes; unmanufactured wood, and salt.

The leading article of import from the United States is wheat flour. Corn and meal, bread, biscuit, meats, dairy products, wood and its manufactures, iron, steel, etc., are also imported.

CITIES AND TOWNS.

San Juan, the capital, is situated on an island off the northern coast of the mainland, with which it is now connected by the San Antonio bridge. The city is a perfect specimen of a walled and fortified town, with Morro Castle crowning the promontory at the western extremity of the island. The population, including the inhabitants of Marina and Puerta de Tierra, as well as those within the city walls, was estimated in 1896 at 30,000, and consists largely of negroes and of mixed races. Owing to the lack of a good water supply, and the general unsanitary conditions which prevail, the city is unhealthy. The houses are all of two stories, the poorer inhabitants occupying the ground floor, while those better off live above them. There is no running water in the city, the inhabitants being dependent for their supply upon the rainfall which is caught on the flat roofs of the houses and stored in cisterns, and in dry seasons the supply is entirely exhausted. The city is built upon clay mixed with lime packed hard and impervious to water. Its manufactures are of small importance.

The city of Ponce, with a population of 37,500, and in commercial importance the second city of Porto Rico, is situated two miles from the coast in the southern part of the island. With an ample water supply conveyed to the city by an aqueduct it is, perhaps, the healthiest town on the island. Playa, its port, having a population of 5,000, is connected with it by a fine road.

The town of Arecibo, with a population of from 6,000 to 7,000, is situated on the northern coast of Porto Rico, and is the port for a district of some 30,000 inhabitants.

CLIMATE.

The climate of the island, though hot and humid, is healthful, except in marshy districts and in cities where sanitary rules are neglected. Yellow fever seldom occurs, and when it does it is confined to the unsanitary towns and their surroundings, never appearing far from the coasts. The thermometer does not fall below 50 deg. or rise above 90 deg. The heat is not so great as at Santiago, though the latter is one and a half degrees further north. As in Cuba, there are but two seasons, the rainy and the dry, the former lasting from July to December, the latter from January to the close of June. The delightful, dry and salubrious atmosphere of midwinter and spring, with its general healthfulness, promises to bring this island into prominence both as a resort for invalids and for homes to those who would escape the rigors of northern winters.

Porto Rico is an ideal lazy man's country, and the overworked American will, undoubtedly, come to make it more and more his Mecca for rest and recuperation. Even the interior feels the soft, salt air from the ocean. The people are kind-hearted, "easy-going," hospitable, and fond of amusement. Every environment conduces to the dismission of all worriment, to rest, sleep, and a happy-go-lucky state of mind.

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS (CONTINUED).

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

"Most bounteous here in her sea-girt lands, Nature stretches forth her hands,

* * * * *

And walks on gold and silver, and knows her power increased, Nor fears the tyrant longer--'Our Lady of the East.'"--Stoddard.

The most important, and by far the most interesting, as well as the least known of America's new possessions, gained by her war with Spain, are the Philippine Islands. Comparatively few Americans have ever set foot upon that far-away and semi-civilized land, the possession of which enables America to say with England, "The sun never sets upon our flag."

The Philippines lie almost exactly on the other side of the globe from us. Approximately speaking, our noonday is their midnight; our sunset is their sunrise. There are some 1,200 of these islands, 400 of which are inhabited or capable of supporting a population; they cover about 125,000 square miles; they lie in the tropical seas, generally speaking, from five to eighteen degrees north latitude, and are bounded by the China Sea on the west and the Pacific Ocean on the east; they are about 7,000 miles southwest from San Francisco, a little over 600 southeast from Hong Kong, China, and about 1,000 almost due north from Australia; they contain between 5,000,000 and 8,000,000 inhabitants, about one-third of whom had prior to Dewey's victory, May 1, 1898, acknowledged Spanish sovereignty to the extent of paying regular tribute to the Spanish crown; the remainder are bound together in tribes under independent native princes or Mohammedan rulers. Perhaps 2,500,000 all told have become nominal Catholics in religion. The rest are Mohammedans and idolaters. There are no Protestant churches in the islands.

THE STORY OF DISCOVERY.

It was twenty-nine years after Columbus discovered America that Magellan saw the Philippines, the largest archipelago in the world, in 1521. The voyage of Magellan was much longer and scarcely less heroic than that of the discoverer of America. Having been provided with a fleet by the Spanish king with which to search for spice islands, but secretly determined to sail round the world, he set out with five vessels on August 10, 1519, crossed the Atlantic to America, and skirted the eastern coast southward in the hope of finding some western passage into the Pacific, which, a few years previous, had been discovered by Balboa. It was a year and two months to a day from the time he left Spain until he reached the southern point of the mainland of South America and passed through the straight which has since borne his name. On the way, one of his vessels deserted; another was wrecked in a storm. When he passed through the Straight of Magellan he had remaining but three of his original five ships, and they were the first European vessels that ever breasted the waves of the mighty western ocean. Once upon the unknown but placid sea--which he named the Pacific--the bold navigator steered straight to the northwest. Five months later, about March 1st, he discovered the Ladrone Islands--which name Magellan gave to the group on account of the thieving propensities of the natives--the word Ladrone meaning robber.

After a short stay at the islands, he steered southwest, landing on the north coast of Mindanao, the second largest island of the Philippines. The natives were friendly and offered to pilot Magellan to the island of Cebu, which lay to the north, and which they reported to be very rich. After taking possession of Mindanao in the name of his king, the discoverer proceeded to Cebu, where he made such demonstrations and gave such descriptions of the glory and power of Spain that he easily formed a treaty with the king of the island, who swore allegiance to his new-found master and had himself and chief advisers baptized in the Catholic faith. Magellan then joined the king in his war against some of the neighboring powers, and on April 25, 1521, was killed in a skirmish. The spot where he fell is now marked by a monument.

FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE GLOBE.

Trouble soon arose between Magellan's sailors and their new-found allies. The Spaniards were invited to a banquet, and twenty-seven of them were treacherously slain. The remainder, fearing for their lives, escaped in their ships and sailed for home. It was soon discovered that they had too few men to manage the three vessels, and one of them was destroyed. The other two proceeded on their voyage and discovered the spice island of Tidor, where they loaded with spices; but a few days later one of the vessels sprang a leak and went down with her freight and crew. The other, after many hardships, reached Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the globe.

SECOND EXPEDITION TO THE PHILIPPINES.

In 1555, Philip II. came to the Spanish throne and determined to send another expedition to the East Indies. His religious zeal inspired him to conquer and christianize the islands. To shorten the long and dangerous voyage, he decided to prepare and start with five ships from the coast of Mexico. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi led the expedition, consisting of four hundred soldiers and sailors and six Augustine monks. In due time the expedition landed at Cebu. The formidable appearance of the ships awed the natives, and on April 27, 1565--forty years after Magellan's remnant had fled from the island--Legaspi landed and took possession. In honor of the Spanish king the archipelago was given the name of the Philippine Islands.

In 1570 Legaspi sent his grandson, Salcedo, to subdue the island of Luzon, the northernmost and the largest of the Philippine group. He landed near the present site of Manila. The trustful natives readily agreed to accept the Spanish king as their master, and to pay tribute. Such slight tribal resistances as were offered were quickly subdued. The next year Legaspi went to Manila to visit his grandson; and, seeing the importance of the situation and its fine harbor, declared that city the capital of the whole archipelago and the king of Spain the sovereign of all the islands. Accordingly, he moved his headquarters to that point, built houses and fortifications, and within a year had the city well organized, when he died, leaving Salcedo as his successor in command. It is remarkable how much these two men accomplished with so small a force; but they did it not so much by arms as by cajoling and deceiving the simple natives. Furthermore, they allowed the conquered people to be governed by their own chiefs in their own way, so long as they paid a liberal tribute to the Spanish crown.

STRUGGLES FOE SUPREMACY.

The history of the Philippines has been monotonous from their discovery until the present, a monotony broken at times by periods of adventures in which Manila has generally been the central scene. About 1580, Lima-hong, a Chinese pirate, took the city with an armed fleet of sixty-two vessels, bearing 4,000 men and 1,500 women. They met with stubborn resistance, but succeeded in scaling the walls and entering the city. The Spanish forces were driven into a fort, which the Chinese stormed. A bloody hand-to-hand conflict followed, and the Chinese were finally repulsed.

Early in the seventeenth century the Dutch attempted to obtain possession of the Philippines. They captured scores of Spanish merchantmen and treasure ships. Many naval engagements followed, the details of which read like the thrilling records of buccaneers and pirates, rather than the wars between two civil powers. Finally, after half a century of warfare, the Dutch were decisively beaten, and abandoned their efforts to capture the Spanish islands, much to the disadvantage of the Filipinos, for the islands of Java, Sumatra, and other Dutch possessions to the south of the Philippines have been remarkably prosperous under the mild rule of the Netherlands.

MANILA TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH.

In 1662, the Chinese planned a revolution against the Spanish authorities. The governor heard of it, and a general massacre of the Mongolians followed. It was even planned to destroy every Chinaman on the islands, and they were in a fair way to do it, when, at length, the Spaniards bethought themselves that by so doing they would practically depopulate the islands of tradesmen and mechanics. Accordingly, they offered pardon to those who would surrender and swear allegiance. A century later, England sent a fleet under Admiral Cornish, with General Draper commanding the troops, against Manila. After a desperate battle the city fell, and the terms of surrender incorporated provisions for free trade, freedom of speech, and, best of all, freedom in religion to the inhabitants of the islands, and required Spain to pay England about $4,000,000 indemnity. By the Peace of Paris, in 1763, however, the war between England and Spain was terminated, and one of the conditions was that Spain should retain the sovereignty of the Philippines. The English troops were withdrawn, and the unfortunate islands were again placed (as Cuba was by the same treaty) under the domination of their tyrannical mistress, and remained under Spanish rule from that time until the Americans freed them in 1898.

UPRISINGS OF THE NATIVES.

In nearly all the uprisings of the natives, the tyranny of the church, as conducted by the friars and priests, was the cause. Such was the case in 1622, in 1649, and in 1660. The occasion of the revolt of 1744 is a fair example of the provocations leading to all. A Jesuit priest ordered all his parishioners arrested as criminals when they failed to attend mass. One of the unfortunates died, and the priest denied him rights of burial, ordering that his body be thrown upon the ground and left to rot in the sun before his dwelling. The brother of the man in his exasperation organized a mob, captured the priest, killed him, and exposed his body for four days. Thus was formed the nucleus of a rebel army. The insurgents in their mountain fastnesses gained their independence and maintained it for thirty-five years, until they secured from Spain a promise of the expulsion of the Jesuit priests from the colony.

Other revolutions followed in 1823, 1827, and 1844, but all were suppressed. In 1872, the most formidable outbreak up to that time occurred at Cavite. Hatred of the Spanish friars was the cause of this uprising also. Spain had promised in the Council of Trent to prohibit friars from holding parishes. The promises were never carried out, and the friars grew continually richer and more powerful and oppressive. Had the plan of the insurgents not been balked by a mistaken signal, no doubt they would have destroyed the Spanish garrison at Manila, but a misunderstanding caused their defeat. The friars insisted that the captured leaders should be executed, and it was done.

THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY.

In 1896, the insurrection broke out again. Its causes were the old oppressions: unbearable taxes, and imprisonment or banishment, with the complete confiscation of property of those who could not pay; no justice except for those who could buy it; extortion by the friars; marriage ceremony so costly that a poor man could not pay the fee; homes and families broken up and ruined; burial refused to the dead, unless a large sum was paid in advance; no provision and no chance for education. Such were some of the causes that again goaded the natives to revolution and nerved them with courage to achieve victory after victory over their enemies until they were, promised most of the reforms which they demanded. Then they laid down their arms, and, as usual, the Governor-General failed to carry out a single pledge.

Such was the condition, and another revolt, more formidable than any of the past, was forming, when Commodore Dewey with his American fleet entered Manila Bay, May 1, 1898, and, by a victory unparalleled in naval warfare, sunk the Spanish ships, silenced the forts, and dethroned the power of Spain forever in a land which her tyranny had blighted for more than three hundred years.

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: THEIR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

It is impossible within the scope of this article to give details concerning all the inhabitants of this far-away archipelago. Professor Worcester, of the University of Michigan, tells us that the population comprises more than eighty distinct tribes, with individual peculiarities. They are scattered over hundreds of islands, and one who really wants to know these peoples must leave cities and towns far behind, and, at the risk of his life, through pathless forests, amid volcanic mountains, at the mercy of savages, penetrate to the innermost wilds. Notwithstanding the fact that for hundreds of years bold men, led by the love of science or by the spirit of adventure, have continued to penetrate these dark regions, there are many sections where the foot of civilized man has never trod; or, if so, he came not back to tell of the lands and peoples which his eyes beheld.

DIFFICULTIES OF EXPLORING THE COUNTRY.

There have been great obstacles in the way of a thorough exploration of these islands. Spain persistently opposed the representatives of any other nation entering the country. She suspected every man with a gun of designing to raise an insurrection or make mischief among the natives. The account of red tape necessary to secure guns and ammunition for a little party of four or five explorers admitted through the customs at Manila is one of the most significant, as well as one of the most humorous, passages in Professor Worcester's story of his several years' sojourn while exploring the archipelago.

In the second place, the savage tribes in the interior had no respect for Spain's authority, and will have none for ours for years to come. Two-thirds of them paid no tribute, and many of them never heard of Spain, or, if so, only remembered that a long time ago white men came and cruelly persecuted the natives along the shore. These wild tribes think themselves still the owners of the land. Some of them go naked and practice cannibalism and other horrible savage customs. Any explorer's life is in danger among them; consequently most tourists to the Philippines see Manila and make short excursions around that city. The more ambitious run down to the cities of Iloilo and Cebu, making short excursions into the country from those points, and then return, thinking they have seen the Philippines. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such travelers no more see the Philippine Islands than Columbus explored America.

Even near the coast there are savages who are almost as ignorant as their brethren in the interior. Mr. Stevens tells us that only "thirty miles from Manila is a race of dwarfs that go without clothes, wear knee-bracelets of horsehair, and respect nothing but the jungle in which they live." The principal native peoples are of Malayan origin. Of these, to the north of Manila are the Igorrotes; in the islands south of Luzon are the civilized Visayas, and below them in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago are the fierce Moros, who originally came from the island of Borneo, settling in the Philippines a short time before the Spanish discovery. They are Mohammedans in religion, and as fanatical and as fearless fighters as the Turks themselves. For three hundred years the Spaniards have been fighting these savages, and while they have overcome them in nearly all the coast towns, they have expended, it is said, upward of $100,000,000 and sacrificed more than one hundred thousand lives in doing so.

THE WARLIKE MOROS.

The fierce Moro warriors keep the Spanish settlers along their coasts in a constant state of alarm, and the visitor to the towns feels as if he were at an Indian outpost in early American history, because of the constant state of apprehension that prevails. Fortunately, however, the Moros along the coast have learned to distinguish between the Spaniard and the Englishman or American, and through them the generosity of the Englese, as they call all Anglo-Saxons, has spread to their brethren in the interior. Therefore, American and English explorers have been enabled to go into sections where the Spanish friars and monks, who have been practically the only Spanish explorers, would meet with certain death. The Mohammedan fanaticism of the Moros, and that of the Catholic friars and Jesuits, absolutely refuse compromise.

The Negritos (little Negroes) and the Mangyans are the principal representatives of the aboriginal inhabitants before the Malayan tribes came. There are supposed to be, collectively, about 1,000,000 of them, and they are almost as destitute of clothing and as uncivilized as the savages whom Columbus found in America, and far more degenerate and loathsome in habits.

THE CITY OF MANILA.

The Island of Luzon, on which the city of Manila stands, is about as large as the State of New York, its area being variously estimated at from 43,000 to 47,000 square smiles. It is the largest island in the Philippine group, comprising perhaps one-third of the area of the entire archipelago. Its inhabitants are the most civilized, and its territory the most thoroughly explored. The city of Manila is the metropolis of the Philippines. The population of the city proper and its environs is considered to be some 300,000 souls, of whom 200,000 are natives, 40,000 full-blooded Chinese, 50,000 Chinese half-castes, 5,000 Spanish, mostly soldiers, 4,000 Spanish half-castes, and 300 white foreigners other than Spaniards. Mr. Joseph Earle Stevens, already referred to, who represented the only American firm in the city of Manila, under Spanish rule (which finally had to turn its business over to the English and leave the island a few years since), informs us that he and three others were the only representatives of the United States in Manila as late as 1893.

The city is built on a beautiful bay from twenty-five to thirty miles across, and on both shores of the Pasig River. On the right bank of the river, going up from the bay, is the old walled town, and around the walls are the weedy, moats or ditches. The heavy guns and frowning cannon from the walls suggest a troubled past. This old city is built in triangular form, about a mile on each side, and is regarded as very unhealthful, for the walls both keep out the breeze and keep in the foul air and odors. The principal buildings in the old part of the city are the cathedral, many parish churches, a few schoolhouses, and the official buildings. The population in the walled city is given at 20,000. Up to a few years ago, no foreigner was permitted to sleep within its walls on account of the Spaniards' fear of a conspiracy. A bridge across the Pasig connects old Manila with the new or unwalled city, where nearly all of the business is done and the native and foreign residents live.

EARTHQUAKES AND TYPHOONS.

It does not take one long to exhaust the sights of Manila, if the people, who are always interesting, are excepted. Aside from the cathedral and a few of the churches, the buildings of the city are anything but imposing. In fact, there is little encouragement to construct fine edifices because of the danger from earthquakes and typhoons. It is said that not a year passes without a number of slight earthquake shocks, and very serious ones have occurred. In 1645 nearly all of the public buildings were wrecked and 600 persons killed. A very destructive earthquake was that of 1863, when 400 people were killed, 2,000 wounded, and 46 public buildings and 1,100 private houses were badly injured or completely destroyed. In 1874 earthquakes were again very numerous throughout the islands, shocks being felt at intervals in certain sections for several weeks. But the most violent convulsion of modern times occurred in 1880 when even greater destruction than in 1863 visited Manila and other towns of Luzon. Consequently there are very few buildings to be found more than two stories high; and the heavy tile roofs formerly in use have, for the most part, been replaced by lighter coverings of galvanized iron.

These light roofs, however, are in constant danger of being stripped off by the typhoons, terrible storms which come with a twisting motion as if rising from the earth or the sea, fairly pulling everything detachable after them. Masts of ships and roofs of houses are frequently carried by these hurricanes miles distant. The better to resist the typhoons, most of the light native houses are built on bamboo poles, which allow the wind to pass freely under them, and sway and bend in the storm like a tree; whereas, if they were set solidly on the earth, they would be lifted up bodily and carried away. Glass windows being too frail to resist the shaking of the earthquakes and the typhoons, small, translucent oyster shells are used instead. The light thus admitted resembles that passing through ground-glass, or, rather, stained glass, for the coloring in the shells imparts a mellow tinted radiance like the windows of a cathedral.

MANILA AS A BUSINESS CENTER.

The streets of Manila are wretchedly paved or not paved at all, and as late as 1893 were lighted by kerosene lamps or by wicks suspended in dishes of cocoanut oil. Lately an electric plant has been introduced, and parts of the city are lighted in this manner. There are two lines of street cars in Manila. The motive power for a car is a single small pony, and foreigners marvel to see one of those little animals drawing thirty-odd people.

The retail trade and petty banking of Manila is almost entirely in the hands of the half-castes and Chinese, and many of them have grown immensely wealthy. There are only about three hundred Europeans in business in the whole Philippine group, and they conduct the bulk of the importing and exporting trade. Manila contains a number of large cigar and cigarette factories, one of which employs 10,000 hands. There is also a sugar refinery, a steam rice mill, and a rope factory worked partly by men and partly by oxen, a Spanish brewery and a German cement factory, a Swiss umbrella factory and a Swiss hat factory. The single cotton mill, in which $200,000 of English capital is invested, runs 6,000 spindles.

The statistics of 1897 show that the whole trade of Manila comprised only forty-five Spanish, nineteen German, and seventeen English firms, with six Swiss brokers and two French storekeepers having large establishments. One of the most profitable businesses is said to be that of selling cheap jewelry to the natives. Breastpins which dealers buy in Europe for twelve cents each are readily sold for from $1.50 to $2.00 each to the simple Filipinos. Almost everything that is manufactured abroad has a fine prospective market in the Philippines, when the condition of the people permits them to buy.

A certain charm attaches to many specimens of native handiwork. The women weave exquisitely beautiful fabrics from the fiber of plants. The floors of Manila houses are admired by all foreigners. They are made of hard wood and polished with banana leaves and greasy cloths until they shine brightly and give an aspect of cool airiness to the room.

Any kind of amusement is popular with the Filipinos--with so much leisure on their hands--provided it does not require too great exertion on their part. They are fond of the theatre, and, up to a few years ago, bullfighting was a favorite pastime; but the most prominent of modern amusements for the natives and half-castes is cockfighting. It is said that every native has his fighting cock, which is reared and trained with the greatest care until he shows sufficient skill to entitle him to an entrance into the public cockpit where he will fight for a prize. The chickens occupy the family residence, roosting overhead; and, in case of fire, it is said that the game "rooster" is saved before the babies. Professor Worcester tells an amusing story of the annoyance of the crowing cocks above his head in the morning and the devices and tricks he and his companions employed to quiet them. The Manila lottery is another institution which intensely excites the sluggish native, and takes from him the money which he does not lose on the cockfights. Under the United States Government this lottery will, no doubt, be abolished in time. It formerly belonged to the Spanish Government, and Spain derived an annual profit of half a million dollars from it.

GENERAL COMMERCE OF THE PHILIPPINES.

It is hardly necessary, so far as the commercial world is concerned, to mention any other locality outside of the city of Manila. To commerce, this city (whose total imports in 1897 were only $10,000,000 and its exports $20,000,000) is the Philippine Islands. Its present meagre foreign trade represents only an average purchase of about one dollar per inhabitant, and an average sale of two dollars per inhabitant for the largest archipelago in the world, and one of the richest in soil and natural resources. The bulk of these exports were hemp, sugar, and tobacco; and, strange as it may seem, the United States received 41 per cent. of her hemp and 55 per cent. of her sugar for the year 1897, notwithstanding the fact that we had not one commercial firm doing business in that whole vast domain.

The city of Iloilo is on the southern coast of the fertile island of Panay, and, next to Manila, the chief port of the Philippines. It has an excellent harbor, and the surrounding country is very productive, having extensive plantations of sugar, rice, and tobacco. The population of Iloilo is only 12,000, but there are a few larger towns in the district, of which it is the seaport. Though the city at spring tides is covered with water, it is said to be a very healthful place, and much cooler than Manila.

The other open port, Cebu, on the eastern coast of the island of the same name, is a well-built town, and has a population of about 13,000. From this point the bulk of the hemp for export comes.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE ISLANDS.

It is impossible to speak of the other islands in detail. Seven of the group average larger than the State of New Jersey; Luzon is as extensive as Ohio, Mindanao equals Indiana; and, as we have stated before, about four hundred of them are inhabitable, and, like Java, Borneo, and the Spice Islands, all are rich in natural resources. They are of a volcanic origin, and may be described in general as rugged and mountainous. The coasts of most of the islands are deeply indented by the sea, and the larger ones are well watered by streams, the mouths of which afford good harbors. Many of the mountainous parts abound in minerals. Mr. Karuph, President of the Philippine Mineral Syndicate, in May, 1898, addressed a letter to Hon. John Hay, at that time our ambassador to England, in which he declares that the Philippines will soon come prominently forward as a new center of the world's gold production. "There is not a brook," says Mr. Karuph, "that finds its way into the Pacific Ocean whose sands and gravel do not pan the color of gold. Many valuable deposits are close to deep water. I know of no other part of the world, the Alaskan Treadwell mines alone excepted, where pay ore is found within a few hundred yards of the anchorage of sea-going vessels." In addition to gold, iron, copper, lead, sulphur, and other minerals are found, and are believed to exist in paying quantities. The numerous mineral springs attest their presence in almost every part of the principal islands.

FORESTS AND TIMBER.

The forest products of the islands are perhaps of greater value than their mineral resources. Timber not only exists in almost exhaustless quantity, but--considering the whole group, which extends nearly a thousand miles from north to south--in unprecedented diversity, embracing sixty varieties of the most valuable woods, several of which are so hard that they cannot be cut with ordinary saws, some so heavy that they sink in water, and two or three so durable as to afford ground for the claim that they outlast iron and steel when placed in the ground or under water. Several of these woods are unknown elsewhere, and, altogether, they are admirably suited for various decorative purposes and for the manufacture of fine implements and furniture.

Here also are pepper, cinnamon, wax, and gums of various sorts, cloves, tea, and vanilla, while all tropical fruits, such as cocoanuts, bananas, lemons, limes, oranges of several varieties, pineapples, citrons, bread-fruits, custard apples, pawpaws, and mangroves nourish, and most of them grow wild, though, of course, they are not equal to the cultivated fruit. There are fifty-odd varieties of the banana in the archipelago, from the midget, which makes but a single mouthful, to the huge fruit eighteen inches long. There seems to be no limit to which tropical fruits and farm products can be cultivated.

The animal and bird life of the Philippines offer a field of interesting research to naturalists. There are no important carnivorous animals. A small wild-cat and two species of civet-cats constitute about all that belong to that class. The house-cats of the Philippines have curious fish-hook crooks in the ends of their tails. There are several species of deer in the archipelago. Hogs run wild in large numbers. The large water buffalo (carabao) has been domesticated and is the chief beast of burden with the natives. The timarau is another small species of buffalo, very wild and entirely untamable; and, though numerous in certain places, is hard to find, and when brought to bay dies fighting.

Birds abound in all of the islands; nearly six hundred species have been found, over fifty of which exist nowhere else in the world. One of these species builds a nest which is highly prized by Chinese epicures as an article of diet. Prof. Worcester tells us "the best quality of them sometimes bring more than their weight in gold." Crocodiles are numerous in fresh-water lakes and streams, attaining enormous size, and in certain places causing much loss of life among stock and men as well. Snakes also abound, and some of them are very venomous. Cobras are found in the southern islands. Pythons are numerous, some of the smaller sizes being sold in the towns and kept in houses to catch rats, at which they are said to be more expert than house-cats.

All the domestic animals, aside from the carabao, have been introduced from abroad. Cattle are extensively raised, and in some of the islands run wild. The horses are a small Spanish breed, but are very strong and have great endurance. Large European horses do not stand the climate well.

CLIMATE, VOLCANOES, ETC.

The mean annual temperature of Manila is 80 deg. F. The thermometer seldom rises above 100 deg. or falls below 60 deg. anywhere in the archipelago. There is no month in the year during which it does not rise as high as 91 deg. January and December are the coldest months, the average temperature being 70 deg. to 73 deg.. May is the warmest, the average being 84 deg. April is the next warmest, with an average of 83 deg.; but the weather is generally very moist and humid, which makes the heat more trying. The three winter months have cool nights. Malaria is prevalent, but contagious diseases are comparatively few. Yellow fever and cholera are seldom heard of.

The Philippines are the home of many volcanoes, a number of them still active. Mayon, in the island of Luzon, is one of the most remarkable volcanic mountains on the globe. It is a perfect cone, rising to the height of 8,900 feet, and is in constant activity; its latest destructive eruption took place in 1888. Apo, in the island of Mindanao, 10,312 feet high, is the largest of the Philippine volcanoes. Next is Canloon in Negros, which rises 8,192 feet above the sea. Taal is in a lake, with a height of 900 feet, and is noteworthy as being the lowest volcano in the world. To those not accustomed to volcanoes, these great fire-spouting mountains, which are but prominent representatives of many lesser ones in the islands, seem to be an ever-present danger to the inhabitants; but the natives and those who live there manifest little or no fear of them. In fact, they rather pride themselves in their possession of such terrifying neighbors.

Such is an outline view of the Philippine Archipelago of the present day. A new era has opened up in the history of that wonderful land with its liberation from the Spanish yoke. The dense ignorance and semi-savage barbarities which exist there must not be expected to yield too rapidly to the touch of human kindness and brotherly love with which the Christian world will now visit those semi-civilized and untamed children of nature. Nevertheless, western civilization and western progress will undoubtedly work mighty changes in the lives of those people, in the development of that country, during the first quarter of the twentieth century, which ushers in the dawn of its freedom.

THE BATTLE OF MANILA.

In all the annals of naval warfare there is no engagement, terminating in so signal a victory with so little damage to the victors, as that which made the name of George Dewey immortal on the memorable Sunday morning of May 1, 1898, in Manila Bay. The world knows the story of that battle, for it has been told hundreds of times in the thousands of newspapers and magazines and scores of books throughout the civilized world. But few, perhaps, who peruse these pages have read the simple details of the fight as narrated by that most modest of men, Admiral Dewey himself. We cannot better close this chapter on the Philippines than by inserting Admiral Dewey's official report of the battle which wrested the Filipinos from Spanish tyranny and placed nearly ten millions of oppressed people under the protecting care of the United States.

ADMIRAL DEWEY'S STORY OF MANILA.

"UNITED STATES FLAGSHIP OLYMPIA, CAVITE, May 4, 1898.

"The squadron left Mirs Bay on April 27th, arrived off Bolinao on the morning of April 30th, and, finding no vessels there, proceeded down the coast and arrived off the entrance to Manila Bay on the same afternoon. The Boston and the Concord were sent to reconnoitre Port Subic. A thorough search was made of the port by the Boston and the Concord, but the Spanish fleet was not found. Entered the south channel at 11:30 P.M., steaming in column at eight knots. After half the squadron had passed, a battery on the south side of the channel opened fire, none of the shots taking effect. The Boston and McCulloch returned the fire. The squadron proceeded across the bay at slow speed and arrived off Manila at daybreak, and was fired upon at 5:15 A.M. by three batteries at Manila and two near Cavite, and by the Spanish fleet anchored in an approximately east and west line across the mouth of Bakor Bay, with their left in shoal water in Canacao Bay.

"The squadron then proceeded to the attack, the flagship Olympia, under my personal direction, leading, followed at a distance by the Baltimore, Raleigh, Petrel, Concord, and Boston in the order named, which formation was maintained throughout the action. The squadron opened fire at 5:41 A.M. While advancing to the attack two mines were exploded ahead of the flagship, too far to be effective. The squadron maintained a continuous and precise fire at ranges varying from 5,000 to 2,000 yards, countermarching in a line approximately parallel to that of the Spanish fleet. The enemy's fire was vigorous, but generally ineffective. Early in the engagement two launches put out toward the Olympia with the apparent intention of using torpedoes. One was sunk and the other disabled by our fire and beached before they were able to fire their torpedoes.

"At seven A.M. the Spanish flagship Reina Cristina made a desperate attempt to leave the line and come out to engage at short range, but was received with such a galling fire, the entire battery of the Olympia being concentrated upon her, that she was barely able to return to the shelter of the point. The fires started in her by our shells at the time were not extinguished until she sank. The three batteries at Manila had kept up a continuous fire from the beginning of the engagement, which fire was not returned by my squadron. The first of these batteries was situated on the south mole-head at the entrance of the Pasig River, the second on the south position of the walled city of Manila, and the third at Molate, about one-half mile further south. At this point I sent a message to the Governor-General to the effect that if the batteries did not cease firing the city would be shelled. This had the effect of silencing them.

"At 7:35 A.M. I ceased firing and withdrew the squadron for breakfast. At 11:16 I returned to the attack. By this time the Spanish flagship and almost all the Spanish fleet were in flames. At 12:30 the squadron ceased firing, the batteries being silenced and the ships sunk, burned, and deserted.

"At 12:40 the squadron returned and anchored off Manila, the Petrel being left behind to complete the destruction of the smaller gunboats, which were behind the point of Cavite. This duty was performed by Commander E.P. Wood in the most expeditious and complete manner possible. The Spanish lost the following vessels: Sunk, Reina Cristina, Castilla, Don Antonio de Ulloa; burned, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, General Lezo, Marquia del Duero, El Correo, Velasco, and Isla de Mindanao (transport); captured, Rapido and Hercules (tugs), and several small launches.

"I am unable to obtain complete accounts of the enemy's killed and wounded, but believe their losses to be very heavy. The Reina Cristina alone had 150 killed, including the captain, and ninety wounded. I am happy to report that the damage done to the squadron under my command was inconsiderable. There were none killed and only seven men in the squadron were slightly wounded. Several of the vessels were struck and even penetrated, but the damage was of the slightest, and the squadron is in as good condition now as before the battle.

"I beg to state to the department that I doubt if any commander-in-chief was ever served by more loyal, efficient, and gallant-captains than those of the squadron now under my command. Captain Frank Wildes, commanding the Boston, volunteered to remain in command of his vessel, although his relief arrived before leaving Hong Kong. Assistant Surgeon Kindelberger, of the Olympia, and Gunner J.C. Evans, of the Boston, also volunteered to remain, after orders detaching them had arrived. The conduct of my personal staff was excellent. Commander B.P. Lamberton, chief of staff, was a volunteer for that position, and gave me most efficient aid. Lieutenant Brumby, Flag Lieutenant, and Ensign E.P. Scott, aide, performed their duties as signal officers in a highly creditable manner; Caldwell, Flag Secretary, volunteered for and was assigned to a subdivision of the five-inch battery. Mr. J.L. Stickney, formerly an officer in the United States Navy, and now correspondent for the New York Herald, volunteered for duty as my aide, and rendered valuable service. I desire especially to mention the coolness of Lieutenant C.G. Calkins, the navigator of the Olympia, who came under my personal observation, being on the bridge with me throughout the entire action, and giving the ranges to the guns with an accuracy that was proven by the excellence of the firing.

"On May 2d, the day following the engagement, the squadron again went to Cavite, where it remains. On the 3d the military forces evacuated the Cavite arsenal, which was taken possession of by a landing party. On the same day the Raleigh and the Baltimore secured the surrender of the batteries on Corregidor Island, paroling the garrison and destroying the guns. On the morning of May 4th, the transport Manila, which had been aground in Bakor Bay, was towed off and made a prize."

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS (CONTINUED).

THE LADRONE, OR MARIANA ISLANDS.

It was a welcome sight to Magellan and his crew when, one day in March, nearly 400 years ago, they beheld the verdant and beautifully sloping hills of the Ladrone Islands. Eighteen weary months before they had sailed from the coast of Spain, and all that time, first to the southwest and then to the northwest, they had followed the setting sun. Theirs were the first vessels manned by white men that had ever plowed the trackless Pacific; and this was the first land ever seen by white men within that unknown ocean.

It was a pitiable crew on those three small, weather-beaten ships, who drew, that March morning, toward the coast of the present island of Guam, which is now a possession of the United States. Hunger and thirst had driven them to the verge of madness. They had eaten even the leather thongs from their sail fastenings, and only a small mug of water per day was the portion of drink for a man. "Land! Land!!" It was a glad cry from the watch aloft. There were palm trees, cocoanuts, green grass, tropical fruits, an abundance of fresh water, and--though naked--a curious and friendly people. No wonder Magellan paused to rest himself and his sailors.

Those little islands have never been of much value, and never can be. Seventeen of them stretching in a row about six hundred miles from north to south, and their total area, including their islets and reefs, is variously estimated at from 400 to 560 square miles. Hence, there is but about one-fourth more territory on the whole seventeen islands combined than is included within the corporate limits of the city of Greater New York.

A broad channel divides the Ladrones into two groups. The northern group consists of ten islets, without inhabitants; the southern group has seven islands, four of which are inhabited. The largest island, Guahan, known to us as Guam, ceded to us by Spain, was taken by our warship Charleston on July 4, 1898. This island contains the only town in the colony. Its full Spanish name is San Ignacio de Agana. It is the capital of the archipelago, and contains more than half of the whole population.

THE NATIVE INHABITANTS.

When first visited by Europeans, the archipelago contained from 40,000 to 60,000 souls, represented by two distinct classes, the nobles and the people, between whom marriage, and even contact, were forbidden. But the Spanish conquest soon ended this distinction by reducing all alike to servitude. For a long time after Spanish occupation, the natives complained and finally rebelled against the oppressive measures of their rulers; but by the end of the seventeenth century they ceased their resistance, and it was found by a census that fully half of them had perished or escaped in their canoes to the Caroline Islands, and that two-thirds of their one hundred and eighty villages had fallen to ruins. Then came an epidemic which swept away nearly all the natives of Guam; and the island of Tinian (one of the group) was depopulated and its inhabitants brought to Guam.

Nearly all the new arrivals soon died. In the year 1760, a census showed a total of only 1,654 inhabitants left in all the islands, and the Spaniards repopulated them by bringing Tagals from the Philippines. These, mixed with the remaining natives and Spaniards, have steadily increased. The population of the islands in 1899 was estimated at about 9,000. The people are generally lacking in energy, loose in morals, and miserably poor. Their education has been seriously neglected. Their religion is Catholic, no Protestant missions having been encouraged--we might say, not allowed--there or in the Philippines or the Carolines.

TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, ETC.

The islands of the northern group are mountainous, the altitudes reaching from 2,600 to 2,700 feet. There are evidences of volcanoes all over the archipelago, and some mountains contain small craters and cones not yet extinct. The climate of the Ladrones, though humid, is salubrious, and the heat, being tempered by the trade winds, is milder than in the Philippines. The yearly average temperature of Guam is 81 deg. Streams are everywhere copious--though the clearing of the land has diminished their size of late years. The original flora consists generally of Asiatic plants, but much has been introduced from the Philippines and other sources.

Cocoanuts, palms, the bread tree, and tropical trees and plants generally, thrive. The large fruit bat which abounds in the Philippines is indigenous to the Ladrones, and, despite its objectionable odor, is a principal article of food. Swine and oxen are allowed to run wild, and are hunted when needed. There are only a few species of birds; even insects are rare; and the reptiles are represented by several kinds of lizards and a single species of serpent. No domestic animals were known in the islands until introduced by the Spaniards.

When the United States steamship Charleston opened fire on the little city of Agana, July 4, 1898, the people had not heard of the war, and the governor said he thought "the noble Americans were saluting" him, and was "deeply humiliated because he had no powder to return their salute." It was an easy, bloodless victory. The governor and his soldiers were carried to Manila as prisoners, and an American garrison of a few men left to take charge of this new American territory in the Pacific.

CONCLUSION.

Thus at the close of the nineteenth century, the Greater United States assumes its appointed place among the foremost nations of the world, and stands on the threshold of achievements whose grandeur no man dare attempt to prophesy. We pause, awed, grateful, and profoundly impressed, when we recall the mighty events, the amazing progress, and the wonderful advancements in discovery, science, art, literature, and all that tends to the good of mankind that are certain to give the twentieth century a pre-eminence above all the years that have gone before.

The new era of our country has opened. The United States enters on the first stage of the transformation from an isolated commonwealth into an outreaching power with dependencies in both hemispheres. We can no longer hold an attitude of aloofness from the rest of the world. With vulnerable points in our outlying possessions, we must make ready to defend them not only by force of arms but by diplomatic skill. Entangling alliances as heretofore will be avoided, and the conditions, complications, and policies of foreign powers must in the future possess a practical importance for us.

The original thirteen States have expanded into forty-five, embracing the vast area between the two oceans and extending from the British possessions to the Gulf of Mexico. To them has now been added our colonial territory, so vast in extent that, like the British Empire, the sun never sets on our dominions. Where a hundred years ago were only a few scattered villages and towns, imperial cities now raise their heads. Thousands of square miles of forest and solitude have given place to cultivated farms, to factories, and workshops that hum with the wheels of industry. The Patent Office issues 40,000 patents each year. We have three cities with more than a million population apiece, and twenty-five with a population ranging from a hundred thousand to half a million. Greater New York is the second city in the world, and, if its present rate of growth continues, it will surpass London before the middle of the coming century. Our population has grown from 3,000,000 at the close of the Revolution to 75,000,000. When Andrew Jackson became President there was not a mile of railroad in the United States. To-day our mileage exceeds that of all the countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, and the employes, connected directly or indirectly with railroads in the United States, number almost a million persons. The half-dozen crude newspapers of the Revolution have expanded into more than 20,000, whose daily news is gathered from every quarter of the globe. The total yearly issue is more than three billions.

No country can approach the advancements we have made in invention, in discovery, in science, in art, in education and in all the civilizing agencies of mankind. Volumes would be required to name our achievements in these lines. Our material property has been or is equally wonderful. When the Civil War closed, our public debt was nearly $3,000,000,000. On December 1, 1898, it was $1,036,000,000. Most of the leading nations have great debts, but the United States is the only one which is steadily decreasing its debt and at the same time enormously increasing its resources. The debt of Great Britain is now about $87 per capita, that of France $115, of Holland $100, of Italy $75, and of the United States less than $15, with the security increasing all the time.

Let the thoughtful reader note these striking facts. European nations generally, and some South American nations also, have been compelled to resort to various methods of taxation to supply the sums needed for ordinary governmental expenses, to meet the interest on the existing debt, to provide resources for new expenditures, buildings, armament, subsidies, and various public works. England has an income tax and many stamp taxes, a house tax, and collects some 20 per cent. of its revenue from direct taxation. France has a tobacco monopoly, registration taxes, stamp taxes, tax on windows, and innumerable local taxes, one being the octroi, or tax on goods entering cities. In addition to an income tax, and many stamp taxes, Austria derives a good deal of its public revenue from lotteries. Italy goes still further with her tobacco monopoly, house tax, income tax, salt tax, octroi duties, stamp taxes, and heavy legacy and registration taxes. In the United States, however, the public revenues have been provided for and all public expenses met, and the national debt reduced beside, without recourse to any direct taxation. We have no government monopolies, and the Treasury maintains a healthful condition from the receipts of customs and internal revenue payments.

Thus with the spirit of fraternity between all sections of the Union stronger than ever before, with the spirit of patriotism more deeply imbedded and all-pervading, with our moral, educational, and material prosperity and progress greater than any time in our past history, and never equaled by any nation, since the annals of mankind began--we face the future, bravely resolved to meet all requirements, responsibilities, and duties as become men whose motto is

IN GOD IS OUR TRUST.

The End.

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