After examining the shattered barracks and the half-demolished lighthouse, I walked on to the so-called "eastern battery," a strong earthwork on the crest of the ridge about one hundred and fifty yards from the castle. Here, in a wide trench behind a rampart of earth strengthened with barrels of cement, I found four muzzle-loading iron siege-guns of the last century, two modern mortars like the one that I had seen on the skids near the head of the Estrella cove, one smooth-bore cannon dated 1859, and two three-inch breech-loading rifles. The eighteenth-century guns were no more formidable than those on the roof of Morro, but the mortars and three-inch rifles were useful and effective. It was a shell from one of these mortars that killed or wounded eight sailors on the battle-ship _Texas_. One gun had been dismounted in this battery, but all other damage to it by the fleet had been repaired. Owing to the fact that its guns were in a wide trench, six or eight feet below the level of the hilltop, it was extremely difficult to hit them; and although Admiral Sampson repeatedly silenced this battery by shelling the gunners out of it, he was never able to destroy it.
The only other fortifications that I was able to find in the vicinity of Morro Castle were two earthworks known respectively as the "western battery" and the "Punta Gorda battery." The western battery, which was situated on the crest of the hill opposite Morro, on the other side of the harbor entrance, contained seven guns of various sizes and dates, but only two of them were modern. The Punta Gorda battery, which occupied a strong position on a bluff inside the harbor and behind the Estrella cove, had only two guns, but both were modern and of high power. In the three batteries--eastern, western, and Punta Gorda--there were only eight pieces of artillery that would be regarded as effective or formidable in modern warfare, and two of these were so small that their projectiles would have made no impression whatever upon a battle-ship, and could hardly have done much damage even to a protected cruiser. Six of these guns were so situated that, although they commanded the outside approach to the bay, they could not possibly hit an enemy that had once passed Morro and entered the channel. The neck of the bottle-shaped harbor, or, in other words, the narrow strait between Morro Castle and the upper bay, had absolutely no defensive intrenchment except the Punta Gorda battery, consisting of two guns taken from the old cruiser _Reina Mercedes_.