323 CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BOMBARDMENT OF SANTIAGO.— THE FIRST LANDING IN EASTERN CUBA, ON Saturday,June 4th, there is an interesting entryinConsul Ramsden's chary referring to the night after the Merrimac came in. "Last night," he writes, "just as I was going to bed, heavy firing began again, and la-ted until twenty minutes past eleven, when an extra heavy report was heard, more like an explosion, and after that all was still. My wife had already gone to bed, and was sleepy, and would not get up, saying there would be plenty of time when theyr got nearer. This time the firing was not rapidlike that before daybreak, but more regular, and there were no quick-firing guns. It extendetl from Daiquiri to the Morro, and the localities varied between those two, backwards and forwards, and at times it seemed as if there were guns on the hills betweenhereand theLagunas. There werethe usual cannon reports, and sometimes those of very heavy guns,and also those sharp metallicreportsmade by steelguns, which we had not heard on previous occasions. The latter shots were nearer to the Morro. It was a splendid moonlight night, full moon, and we supposed the firing was to cover landingparties. This morning Icould get no news as to the cause of the firing, andnow, thoughIhave seen the generalin command, the Military Governor and the PortCaptain,Iknow no moreabout it; nor do they. They assure me that along the coast, though the flashes could be plainly seen, no shells nor shot fell on the coast. It looks to me very much as if the destroyer Terror, which was at Porto Rico, had been trying to get in here, and that the American fleet was pummelling her,and perhaps finished her up, but this is only my conjecture. There are nineteen ships outside. No one knows the reason of last night's firing, but they are running the story that it was an attempt to bombard the town, which most certainly it wasnot."

What had really happened was that the American fleet was having another great battle with imaginary torpedo boats. The New Orleans gave the alarm. Then the New Yorkarid the rest of the fleet began to see torpedo boats, and blazed away at them. One ship claimedto have sunk a two-funnelleddestroyer close under her bows. Another, the Oregon, claimed to have cut a destroyer in two with a 13-inch shell as she raninto Morro Castle. A full account of the fight is to be readin at least one popular American history of the war. But the Spanish destroyers were certainly not out, and as Lieutenant Fremont, of the U.S. torpedo boat Porter, puts it, the fleet was firing at " caves in the shore-line, moving trains on shore, and the tops of big waves.''

Next day there weresome sceptics in the fleet who declared that they had all been the victims of a false alarm. They were temporarily silenced by the discovery of two bronze Whitehead torpedoes floating on the sea off the harbour mouth. The Porterfound themand triedto pick themup. One sank;the other was safely goton board, after Ensign Gillis,serving on board the boat,had pluckily swum to the torpedo,grappled it in the rough water and, swimming beside it, unscrewed the " war-head" and made it less rous to handle. It was considered unsafe to leave the torpedoes afloat, even though it wasrisky to meddle with them, for left alonein the rough water they might have automatieally exploded themselves on chance collision with oneof the fleet. For a while- this discovery was taken to be a proof that therehad been a real night attack, but they were subsequentlyidentified as Whitehead torpedoes discharged b\ the Spaniards against the Merrimac on the Friday morning.

Admiral Sampson had now a very powerful fleet before Santiago. He had concentrated under his flag nearly all the best fighting ships. He had with him the armoured cruisers New YorkandBrooklyn,thebattleshipsIowa,Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Texas, the cruisers New Orleans, Minneapolis, Pet;"it, Marblehead, and Nashville,the armed liner St. Louis, and a number of smaller craft. The monitors and some of the gunboats were blockading Havana and WesternCuba. The St. Paul,Ha/yard, and Yale were engagedin scouting duties off Puerto