THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 390 H.M.S. Pallas and Alert,outside the harbour. Others went out with Consul Ramsden to El Caney, whither the people were making their way in thousands. The little town was soon overcrowded,and became the centre of a great camp or bivouac of the refugees. Days and nights of misery followed. The wretched people living in the overcrowded camp and town, without proper shelter or food, sick and well huddled together, were dying by the score. The mortality of the children was especially heavy. The Americans and the Red Cross Society furnished some supplies, but they were utterly insufficient to meet the wants of the people. It would be impossible adequately to describe the wretchedness of those days in Caney. Mr.Ramsden gives some idea of it in the detailed narrative of his diary. He was himself oneof the victims,falling illjust before the people returned to Santiago after the surrender.

from the Texas and the Massachusetts, which this night lay just opposite the harbour mouth. But no one on boardof her was hurt,and her crew sank her at the spot that hadbeen chosen. They did not,however, succeed in obstructing the channel, for the cruiser swung round asshe sank,lying lengthwaysin the narrows, withher upper decks awash, instead of sinking athwart the channel. Under the fire of thebattleships, she had gone down quicker than wasintended. During the firing the batteries on shore made onehit, sending an 8-inch shell into the officers' quarters of the Indiana, where it exploded, wrecking the place, but injuring no one, as all the officers wereat their battle stations. Thus, although two ships, the Merrimac aud the Mercedes, had been sunk with a view to blocking the entrance, the sea gate of Santiago still lay open. But Admiral Sampson did not realise this, and made no attempt to enter. The sunken cruiser had proved a very useful auxiliary in the defence. It was her guns, manned by her officers and men, that constituted the only serious element of strength in the batteries. Out of a reduced crew, the Mercedeshad lost during the siege some thirty killed and wounded,including her commander, the gallant Acosta.

It is doubtful, too, whether anything was gained by the Americans through this threat of bombardment. The wholesalemigration of the people to ElCaney and the other villages made it,if anything, easier for Toral to hold out in the town. Though almost at the end of his resources, the Spanish general managed to maintainhimself for nearly afortnight after the destruction of the fleet.

On this same evening of the Fourth the Americans cut the water mains that supplied the city, forcing the garrison to depend on a few wells and on the inferior water to be got from the streams near the suburbs. Notwithstanding the truce which had been granted to allow of the withdrawal of non-combatants, the preparations for attack and defence went on steadily, on both sides. The Americans were laboriouslydragging mortars and light guns up to the front from Siboney and mounting them on the ridges facing the city, so that they could fire over the heads of their own men holding the advanced trenches. The heavy siege train was still on the transports or on the beach. The Spaniards were mounting some of the quick-firersof theMercedes anddigging trenches and loopholing house and garden walls, and barricading the streets all along the margin of the city. Their hospitals were full of sick, the men in the working parties were half-starved, but up to the very last day of the siege they were busy with pick andspade, with their rifles readybesidethem.

On the evening of Monday, July 4th, the cruiser Reina Mercedes, the only Spanish worship, except a gunboat, left at Santiago, was sunk at the harbour mouth. Nowthat the fleet was gone, and some of the torpedoes had been removed to let the cruisers out, it was felt that it would be better to try to obstruct the entranceby sinking a large ship in the narrows. The Mercedes was the only vessel available for the purpose. Her guns and stores had been removed for the defence of the sea forts and the entrenchmentsof Santiago, Between eight and nine in the evening she weighed anchor and steamed down to the harbour mouth. Miguel Lopez, the pilot who had gone out with Cervera, was one of the men in charge of the ship on this her last voyage. At half-past eleven she wasin the narrows. The blockading ships discovered her with their searchlights, and,not knowing that thestate of her engines and boilers had long condemned her to inactivity, they thought that she was trying to run out, and openeda heavy fire on the narrow channel. The shore batteries replied. The Mercedes was hit several times by shells fired General Shafter realised that to storm the Spanish works would be a costly business. He knew that Toral was not to be frightened into