THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 3+1-Miley, andAdmiral Sampson. ColonelGoetzen, the German attache, in spotless white, and a Cuban officer in a linen blouse and with bare feet, are talking in signs, and with them is Captain Lee, the British attache, booted and spurred,with fieldglasses,helmet,andimmaculate kharki. Captain Stewart Brice, in the uniform of the volunteer army— a blue jacket with breeches rolled above the knee— and a group of ensigns from the warship, act as a background to the principal actors, and still further back of them are the Cuban soldiers, squatting grouped together, under a sun so hot that it burns the eyes, on a high cliff overlooking a magnificent valley of royal palms, which meets motionless a blue sea broken only by lines of whitebreakers on the shore, and which further out is broken again by the slow-movinghulls of thirty transports and thirty ships of war. " The three commanders are seated on boxes under the palm-leaf roof of an open hut. One of them has a blueprint mapon his knees, and before they roll it up again the attack on Santiago will be decided upon and her fate CUBAN GENERALS AND STAFF.

on the ground, curious and interested, and showing their teeth in broad smiles of welcome, and touching their straw hats when any one oi the American officers looks their way.

"Any land would seem fair aftera week on the troopships, but there are few lands more fair than this one, and few places on it more beautiful than this camp of Garcia's, lying between the great mountains and the great sea, shaded bythe royal palms, and coloured by the brilliant scarletflowers."

Garcia reported that he had about 3,000 troops in the immediate neighbourhood and ktrge forces further inland. He undertook to watchthe north-westernapproachesto Santiago and harass or stop the march of any reinforcements that might endeavour to reach the city.

sealed. Outside this hut are five negro sentries, naked to the waist,and on the open space about the hut are hundreds of the Cubanarmy officers, well armed and well uniformed, privates of every shade of skin, with every make of weapon, and small laughing boys, armed with macheles, or not armed at all. " The palm-leaf hut where the conference is taking place is open to the hot air at both ends, and on each side, and standing about it, or kneeling on the ground in order to obtain a better view, are the strangestgathering ofpersons that this warhas thrown together. Colonel John Jacob Astor is crowded by a black giant, with only a guard belt to cover his naked shoulders. There are also General Ludlow, of the engineers, General Costello and Lieutenant