is aid from San Francisco almost a month
after his victory--an unconscionable delay. Some 25,000 troops will be
sent to his aid, and with the insurgents, who were greatly encouraged
and strengthened by the American victory, will forever destroy Spain's
power in the Philippines.

* * * * *

In the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, where it
was expected the fighting would come first and be most decisive, the
war lagged languidly for weeks. For a few days the jackies found some
excitement and some hope of profit in capturing unsuspecting Spanish
merchantmen, but soon the dull and deadly monotony of the peaceful
blockade settled down upon the fleet, and Sampson's men grilled grimly
under a blazing sun by day and slept uneasily by their guns at night,
week after week, without a touch of battle to vary the dull round. The
Spanish ships "Vizcaya" and "Oquendo," which had been in the harbor of
Havana when war was declared, had slipped away, and there was no enemy
afloat in the neighborhood save puny gunboats and torpedo boats that
clung close to the protecting guns of the fortresses. Blockading is
the most trying duty the blue-jacket has to discharge. Destitute
wholly of glory, the element of danger is still ever present in a form
which is particularly trying to the nerves. Every night brought danger
of an attack by torpedo boats. These swift and sinister craft might at
any time dart out of Havana harbor, discharge their fatal bolt, and
send a good ship to the bottom as speedily as went the "Maine." That
the Spaniards at no time even seriously attempted a torpedo-boat
attack on the blockading squadron seems to reflect on their courage.
But what they lacked apparently in courage they made up in shrewdness.
For weeks the best efforts of our board of strategy and our board of
naval intelligence were baffled by the mysterious movements of the
Spanish fleet under Admiral Cervera. This squadron, which numbered
among its vessels the powerful armored cruisers "Vizcaya," "Maria
Teresa," "Cristobal Colon," and "Almirante Oquendo," was reported now
at the Canaries, then at Cadiz, then dashing through the Suez Canal to
overwhelm Dewey at Manila, then off the coast of New England,--whereat
Boston and Portland were mightily alarmed,--then bound South to
capture or destroy the "Oregon,"--which was painfully making the
voyage around Cape Horn,--then at Martinique, and, in short, at every
conce