THE THIRD DAY OF THE BOMBARDMENT. 335 enterprise it was that necessitated a costly ami dangerous land campaign. But for his call for the land forces to helphim to destroy Cer\era's fleet or force it out of its stronghold, the advice of General Miles would have been taken and the invasion of Cuba deferred until the proper seasonfor land operations.

There was another defect, and a still more serious one, in the defensive resources of Santiago of which the American commanders were not aware. If they had known of it, the fact would havematerially influenced theirplans and perhaps spared them the land expedition in the sickly rainy season. Santiago had from the first possessed no large store of provisions. It was now rapidly approachinga state of famine. On more than once in the American fleet at night and the anxious strain caused by the presence of his torpedo destroyer-s in the port,he ought to have made some real use of them. Every night the blockading fleet kept its searchlights playing on the entrance to the bay, watching for a possible sortie of his cruisers. A sailor with a little more dash would have sent out his torpedo boats to throw the fleetinto confusion, and whilethe searchlights were seeking for those wasps of thesea, he would have dashed out with his cruisers and swept through the hostile fleet, with allhis guns ablaze. If he got through he might hope to shake off all but the swiftest of the enemyT in a few hours'steaming, and then he might try the chance ot battle with the foremost IN HIE C.S. CAMPL FIELD TELEPHONING.

theday ol" the third bombardment meat was at eighty cents a pound, and unless one went early to market there was none at any price. Flour had run short, and was being eked out with rice. Vegetables were scarcely to be had. The blockade alone would before very long starve the Spanish squadron into venturing to sea and force even the weak garrison of the city to evacuate the place. It was reported in the American newspapers that Santiago was provisioned for a year. If it hadbeen, the result of the summer campaign might have been different.

But it must also be said that Cervera's lack of initiative was something far worse than Sampson's. He ought to have made use of his stay at Santiago to clean up his ships and get their machinery into good order. It was not beyond the resources of his engineers to get the Hontoria guns, which wereleft on the Mercedes, fitted in thebarbettes of the Colon. C(.n.sidcring the wild excitement that false alarms had caused ofhis pursuers. Such a plan might have ended in disaster, but it could not be worse disaster than awaited him. But if he had been the man to play this bold game, he would never have shut himself up in the first instance behind the headlands of Santiago Bay.

Whi ral Linares and Admiral Cervera were preparing to hold Santiago against the American fleet and army, Marshal Blanco was making much more elaborate preparations for the defence of Havana, and he had more abundant resources at his disposal for this purpose. As soon as the war began he had withdrawnmost of the outlying garrisons from the interior of the province, and was thus able to concentrate some 50,000 men in and around thecapital. Manyof these were employed with the help of civilian labour in surrounding the city on the land side with a strong girdle of earthworks,shelter trenches and wireentanglements.