Young Peoples History of the War with Spain | Page 8

waters of the Bahamas.
"I didn't know where the Department wanted to use me. I was in the
dark as to the location of the two fleets. I knew one had been at
Hampton Roads and another at Key West, and the charts told me that
Jupiter Inlet was in telegraphic reach of all points on the coast. From
that place I had coal enough to make the run to either of the two fleets."
With scarcely a day's delay, the Oregon joined the North Atlantic
Squadron, in Cuban waters, and was one of the vessels under
Commodore Schley when that officer trapped the Spanish fleet in the
harbor of Santiago.
When we think of the officers and men on the decks of a warship, we
must not forget the force of men below the decks. The engineers,
firemen and stokers do as good work, and are entitled to as much praise,
as the fighting force above. In battle they are kept under the hatches,
and, as a rule, never know of the progress or the result of a fight until it
closes. They work in a temperature of from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty degrees, by half-hour stretches. The roaring furnaces make the
fire-rooms almost beyond a man's power to endure, and we should give
a great deal of our praise to the brave fellows who make the power that
moves the ship.
[Illustration: The Men Who Make the Power.]
You know that we saw in the first chapter, that Spain owned another
large island some miles east of Cuba--an island called Porto Rico.
This island was sighted by Columbus on November 16, 1493, and,
three days later, he anchored in one of its bays. In 1510, and again a
year later, Ponce de Leon visited the island and established a settlement,
to which he gave the name of San Juan Bautista. Spain did not always
hold it peaceably, however, for at different times the Dutch and the

English tried to take it from her. The people of the island used to be
terribly annoyed by pirates and buccaneers, but that was a long time
ago.
The Spanish used to call San Juan the "Rich Port of John the Baptist,"
and it was a great source of profit to them for nearly four hundred years.
Ponce is the largest city in the island, but San Juan has the advantage of
a large, protected harbor. Like Havana and Santiago, San Juan has its
Morro Castle, and within its walls are the buildings of a small military
town,--houses for troops, a chapel, bake-house, and guard-room, with
dungeons down by the sea, and underneath it.
[Illustration: Palace and Sea-wall, San Juan, Porto Rico.]
The city of San Juan lies upon an island connected with the mainland
by a bridge and a causeway. The streets are narrow, the houses are low,
mostly of a single story, and are built in the old-fashioned Spanish style,
with thick walls around the courtyard. The fronts are ugly and are
painted all sorts of brilliant colors--pink, blue, purple and yellow. There
are heavy shutters in the windows for protection, but there are no panes
of glass in the town. Behind the gloomy walls are splendid gardens and
courtyards, with splashing fountains, shaded by palms. The city
contains a cathedral, a theatre, a city hall, the Governor-General's
palace, and several fine churches, and in the center is quite a large park,
with concrete walks and seats, as with us. There is no turf, however. All
around this park the market women gather every morning, selling
poultry, eggs, vegetables and flowers, and in the evening there is music
by a military band.
It was thought that the Spanish fleet, which had caused our
Government so much anxiety, might go to San Juan, the capital of the
island, and so, before the Oregon arrived, and before any of the Spanish
ships had been seen, Admiral Sampson took some of his vessels from
Cuba to Porto Rico in hope of meeting Admiral Cervera, the Spanish
commander, and his fleet. Our ships reached San Juan in the evening of
May 11th, but could see nothing of the Spanish ships. Next morning
our ships fired upon the forts guarding the harbor, to try the strength of
the enemy. But finding the forts stronger than he thought they were,

Admiral Sampson drew off his fleet. He could not spare the time, or
spend his powder and shells, upon San Juan then. The important thing
to do was to find the Spanish fleet. So Admiral Sampson again sailed
toward Havana.
The two ports on the northern coast of Cuba that seemed most likely to
attract the Spanish fleet were Havana and Matanzas. There was one
port on the southern coast that seemed to be a