"The island is cruelly overtaxed, to keep up a garrison fifty times more numerous than would be necessary if it were properly administered. I am quite sure Spain will eventually lose this rich possession. I assure you, and without the least prejudice, I think her quite incapable of keeping it. She has had any amount of experience, but of the wrong sort; and as to her men, her governors and commanders, however honest they may be in their own country, so soon as they land here they grow either corrupt or tyrannical."[18]
Morning found us running along some of the grandest coast scenery in the world: at this point the Macaca or Sierra Maestra Mountains rise boldly from the sea, to the height of 5000 and 6000 feet. The Ojo del Toro, one of the highest peaks of the range, is fully visible far away in the extreme distance, and towering above it you perceive the sharp peak of Turquino, the loftiest in the whole island, 6800 feet high. I was much struck by the resemblance between this coast-line and that between Nice and Monte Carlo. The colouring is almost identical, the sea as deep a blue as the Mediterranean; and the slopes of the rocky mountains are clothed with the same rich tints, shading from indigo to the palest grey. At about ten o'clock we were informed we were nearing Santiago, but it was a considerable time before the city rose in sight, long, even, after we had passed Cabanas, the first fort.
Santiago Bay is shaped like a champagne bottle, with a narrow neck and an oblong body. It is a most difficult harbour to enter, and the town ought to be impregnable; but the fortresses, although architecturally imposing,--especially the Morro, which looks like a mediæval castle, its walls rising straight out of the rocks,--are, I am assured, mere toys so far as modern warfare is concerned. The bay itself, on which the city is built, spreads out, once you have passed the straits, like a glorious lake, circled by green hills, thickly covered by the most varied vegetation, with groups of tall palm-trees standing out conspicuously here and there. Presently, a turn brings you in front of the city, with its lofty cathedral towers, and its brightly painted houses, terraced up the hill to a height of about 500 feet above the level of the sea.