THE BOMBARDMENT BEGINS. 313 cculd not see,but they did no damage to anyone or anything beyond knockingoff a piece of staircase of the Morro. The Colon replied with several broadsides, and they tell me she fired 180 shots, and they claimto have hit the transatlantic boat. Punta Gorda fort and the Socapa one, and the Morro, also returned the fire, and that of the Socapa, which has two Hontoria guns taken from the Reina Mercedes, the only guns good for anything inall the forts, claims to have put two shells on the stern,perhaps astern, of the Iowa. Ido not believethe Iowais there, butthat it is theAmazon. They say she reeled to one side, and the others sent off their boats to her. Anyhow,the ships hauledoff after that shot,and firedno more. This little event broke San Juan in Puerto Rico. But the two that were left, if boldly used under the cover of darkness, might prove dangerous foes to the blockading fleet. So each night the electric searchlights wereturnedon the harbourmouth, andmenslept beside thequick-firers andmachine guns on the cruisers and battleships. Such a state of things produces a certain nervous "jumpiness" eveninpeace manSuvres, and no wonderthaton the night after the first bombardment there was wildexcitement when the Texas suddenly opened fire and the wordran through every ship that the Spanish destroyers had come out. The narrative of the fight, as it was telegraphed to the American press, is worth reproducing verbatim. Thus it ran:— THE SPANISH ARMOURED CRUISER " VIZCAYA."

tne monotony of the blockading business, and aroused thepeople, who flocked down to see it. No one seemedto be the leastalarmed, but took it rather as a joke."

"The first engagement between Commodore Schley and the Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral Cervera, took place last night. Two torpedo-boat destroyers about midnightslipped quietly out of the harbour, bent on mischief. They crept along in the shadow of old Castle Morro and the mountain for two miles to the westward before they were discovered by the look-out on the Texas, where the men were sleeping by theguns, so that the battleship 1 oul I be quickly manned. An instant after thelookout gave the alarm the white stream of the Texas's searchlight flashed along the shadow under the mountain, revealing the desperate game of the imprisoned Spaniards. The torpedoboat destroyers,when they saw that thev had liscovered,dashedtowards the Texas, which, with the cruiser Brooklyn close beside it, was lying inshore. The Texaspromptly opened fire With her port-forward batteries andher cracksix-This matter-of-factrecord contrasts curiously with the contemporarynewspaper reportsof the enormous damage done by the bombardment. The Spaniards were equally mistaken in their idea that they had done any harm to the fleet. None of the ships werehit. Schley had, however, effected all he intended. He had drawn the fire of the shore batteries, aud the fact that the Cristobal Colon had been actually seen in action was taken to be the final confirmation of the theory that Cervera wasinside.

It was known that there were two torpedo boats of the destroyer class with the Spanish admiral. The third of Villamil's flotilla, the had remained at Martinique for repairs, and had succeeded inmaking her way thence to