Show SIGHTS IN SANTIAGO The Remains of a Ship That Was Once a Part of the Armada Boston Transcript I can imagine the interest with which our sailors and aol diers will look around the famous city and harbor of Santiago One of the sights In the harbor Is thq remains of the old St Paul one of the ships of the great Spanish armada that Philip II sent to England in 1335 being on of the very few of that famous flotilla that escaped destruction at the time what a career this old ship has been through she has breasted the waves of many seas and withstood the storms in many waters for nearly three centuries when she was burned to the waters edge here in Santiago harbor a few years ago and sunk where her remains now lie covered with barn achesan emblem of the nation whose flag she once so proudly bore During the last years of her career afloat she was used as a transport for troops from Europe and as a Spanish guardship in these seas by the local government She can only be seen at low water only the ribs and stanchions stan-chions are held together by the stout keel and timbers and tower sheathing The Spaniards would probably have tried to destroy even this part of the wreck if they had supposed that the American jackis would have made these timbers into relics of their vie tory if they find them as they probably prob-ably will Another thing about this harbor is the sharks The soldier will not be able to take a swim here for these monstrous maneating sharks abound and for all the water looks so quiet in the day if a person should fall overboard over-board he would never come up alive The sharks follow the ships in hopes of a meal Political prisoners have been confined In Morro In times past and I was told that condemned pa tniots had been led out upon the ramparts ram-parts and shot their bodths falling into the water to be eaten by the sharks in a moment Spain extends no mercy to any one daring to try for freedom from her cruelty On the other side of Morro can be seen a cave directly under the castle The sea has worn this so deep that it has not beenexphored within the mern ely of people in the place The lofty entrance to this cave is a perfect arch and they say that the superstition is that no one attempting to explore it will ever live to return There are little coves and bays along the coast where oysters do really grow On trees As funny as this sotinds the mangrove trees extend their rqots into the sea and the oysters affix themselves them-selves to these growing and thriving We could not believe this until we saw it ourselves These oysters are snni and are eaten on the islands freely Then the fish are so strange many of them to foreign eyes They are of many bright colors and It is here that the real Spanish mackerel abound The harbor of Santiago is a beautiful ones and a safe one as it is land locked but it is an awfully hot one and our people could not stand it to be shut in there long The Cuban stevedores round the harbor wear noUi ing but a pair of white linen drawers and a palmetto straw hat when work log at loading or unloading a vessel and all the Cubans drink very lltto water When working in the heat they a good deal of thin Catalina vine at a penny a drink They also drink a good deal of coffee without milk or sugar and they smoke incessantly men and womenand children even smoke and may be seen roiling a cigar ette every moment They can buy a bunch of real Cuban cigarettes for a penny Some of the common class of work ingmen are called motteros and they live in little huts or cabins of one room the earth for a floor and a hole cut for a window This has a shutter which opens out The roof is palmetto and slopes down to within a few feet of the ground Sometimes a house like this holds a father mother and a dozen lit tie naked young ones who roll amun in every direction among their pigs degs and chickens all in a heap Many everyday street scenes would astonish our peoplefor instance see ing horses kept without a bit of shelter There are no barns and often a horse may be seen standing all day long with a saddle on in waiting for his master These horses are little and goodnatur ed the childrea play around among them without fear but they are seldom shod the people being too iniTohent to care for animals The Only thing that is taken care of in Cuba is the gamecock game-cock Fighting cocks have their feath ens plucked and are trained to fight The Cubans are not domestic The men almost live at the clubs the Don Carlos is the best club in Santiago It you go by this at night you will see the men a playing at some kind ot game and with drinks before them The clubs are open to the street exactly the same as the house so you can look in and see all inside Sometimes you will see two persons dancing a fandanire torether There are no books or papers at these clubs in fact very few Cubans can read unless it is of the wealthy class The mass of the people are very ignorant ignor-ant and it is the way the Spanish want them to be but they are also too indolent to want to learn much The head of the church of Rome Is located here at Santiago It being an archbishop see and at Easter the core monials draw the people from all parts of the island One queer figure Ia the cathedral here is a saint with a spear In hand mounted on horseback It is at the right of the altar This Is to make the people adore a soltier anti Spanish soldiers have ruled here In cruel ways and you feel this particularly particu-larly when you meet the prisoners or chain gang marching with dragging feet and rattling irons through the streets in the burning sun to their daily dai-ly labor of breaking stone This work goes on Sunday as well as other days The prisoners are not allowed to speak to the man they are chained to but have to drag along silently in this her rible way Sometimes the soldiers and chain gang meet and the prisoners faces light up with hatred as the aol diers pass with cruel laughter not knowing but that the next day they also may be Ia this chain gang thorn selves It is a strange land to exist only a few days sail from us with a people living exactly as they have done for 300 years and it will be hard to change It as there are so many different kinds of people to deal withSpanish Creole negroes and Chinese being mixed up together in a way that it Is not like dealing with one nation Moreover tho people are tricky and not to be depended depend-ed upon The Moorish and barbarous bleed rises in all classes when least expected ex-pected and this is shown plainly In a bull fight where even the high class Spanish ladys eyes will shine and gilt ten exactly as her Afnibaa sisters itt the lowerpriced seats when the poor bull gets the worst of it Whea such sights are enjoyed by a people it does not seem asif the horrors of war woold affect them very much ANNIE ELLISON SMITH |