distance of five or six miles, rise the aerial
peaks of the splendid Sierra del Cobre, with a few summer clouds
drifting across their higher slopes and casting soft violet shadows into
the misty blue of their intervening valleys. Here and there the terraced
mesa, which forms the coast-line, is cut into picturesque castle-like
bluffs by a series of wedge-shaped clefts, or notches, and through the
openings thus made in the rocky wall one may catch brief glimpses of
deep, wild ravines down which mountain torrents from the higher peaks
tumble to the sea under the dense concealing shade of mango-and
mimosa-trees, vines, flowering shrubs, and the feathery foliage of
cocoanut and royal palms.

Wild, beautiful, and picturesque, however, as the coast appears to be,
not a sign does it anywhere show of a bay, an inlet, or a safe sheltered
harbor. For miles together the surf breaks almost directly against the
base of the terraced rampart which forms the coast-line, and even where
streams have cut deep V-shaped notches in the rocky wall, the strips of
beach formed at their mouths are wholly unsheltered and afford safe
places of landing only when the sea is smooth and the wind at rest.
Often, for days at a time, they are lashed by a heavy and dangerous
surf, which makes landing upon them in small boats extremely difficult,
if not absolutely impracticable.

About thirty-five miles from Santiago harbor, as one sails eastward, the
wall-like mesa on the left sinks from a height of two or three hundred
feet to a height of only twenty or thirty; the mountains of the Sierra
del Cobre come to an end or recede from the coast, leaving only a few
insignificant hills; and through a blue, tremulous heat-haze one looks
far inland over the broad, shallow valley of the Guantanamo River.

We entered the beautiful Bay of Guantanamo about half-past five o'clock
on Saturday afternoon, and found it full of war-ships and transports.
The white hospital steamer _Solace_ lay at anchor over toward the
western side of the harbor, and between her and the eastern shore were
the _Dolphin_, the _Eagle_, the _Resolute_, the _Marblehead_, and three
or four large black colliers from Key West. As we rounded the long, low
point on the western side of the entrance and steamed slowly into the
spacious bay, a small steam-launch came puffing out to meet us, and, as
soon as she was within hailing distance, an officer in the white uniform
of the navy rose in the stern-she