mp had been taken, with a loss of two Cubans killed,
one American and four Cubans wounded. Twenty-three Spaniards were dead.

The water-tank was destroyed, and the enemy, panic-stricken, was fleeing
here and there, yet further harassed by a heavy fire from the _Dolphin_,
who sent her shells among the fugitives whenever they came in view.

When the day drew near its close, and the weary but triumphant marines
returned to camp, a hundred of the enemy lay out on the hills dead; more
than twice that number must have been wounded, and eighteen were being
brought in as prisoners.

[Illustration: U. S. S. VESUVIUS.]

On this night of June 14th, at the entrance to Santiago Harbour, the
dynamite cruiser _Vesuvius_--that experimental engine of destruction--was
given a test in actual warfare, and the result is thus graphically
pictured by a correspondent of the New York _Herald_:

"Three shells, each containing two hundred pounds of guncotton, were fired
last night from the dynamite guns of the _Vesuvius_ at the hill at the
western entrance to Santiago Harbour, on which there is a fort.

"The frightful execution done by those three shots will be historic.

"Guns in that fort had not been silenced when the fleet drew off after the
attack that followed the discovery of the presence of the Spanish fleet in
the harbour.

"In the intense darkness of last night the _Vesuvius_ steamed into close
range and let go one of her mysterious missiles.

"There was no flash, no smoke. There was no noise at first. The pneumatic
guns on the little cruiser did their work silently. It was only when they
felt the shock that the men on the other war-ships knew the _Vesuvius_ was
in action.

"A few seconds after the gun was fired there was a frightful convulsion on
the land. On the hill, where the Spanish guns had withstood the missiles
of the ordinary ships of war, tons of rock and soil leaped in air. The
land was smitten as by an earthquake.

"Terrible echoes rolled around through the shaken hills and mountains.
Sampson's ships, far out at sea, trembled with the awful shock. Dust rose
to the clouds and hid the scene of destruction.

"Then came a long silence; next another frightful upheaval, and following
it a third, so quickly that the results of the work of the two mingled in
mid-air.

"Another still, and then two shots from a Spanish battery, that, after the
noise of the dynamite, sounded like the crackle of firecrackers.

"The _Ve