rant, adjusted to the eye of the observer. The figures marked on the
quadrant give the latitude of the ship at the moment of meridian. The
ship's time is then made to correspond,--that is to say, it must
indicate twelve o'clock noon,--after which it is compared with an exact
timepiece called a chronometer, which keeps Greenwich (English) time,
and the difference enables the observer to determine the longitude. As
fifteen miles are allowed to the minute, there will be nine hundred
miles to the hour. Thus, by means of the chronometer and the quadrant,
the sailing-master is enabled to designate his exact situation upon the
ocean chart.

Soon after passing the remarkably sheltered port of Guantanamo, which
was for nearly a century the most notorious piratical rendezvous in the
West Indies, the famous castle of Santiago is seen. It is called Moro
Castle, but it is older than the better-known Moro of Havana, by nearly
a hundred years. This antique, yellow, Moorish-looking stronghold, which
modern gunnery would destroy in ten minutes or less, is picturesque to
the last degree, with its crumbling, honey-combed battlements, and queer
little flanking towers. It is built upon the face of a lofty,
dun-colored rock, upon whose precipitous side the fortification is
terraced. Its position is just at the entrance of the narrow river
leading to the city, six or eight miles away, so that in passing up the
channel one can speak from the ship's deck to any one who might be
standing on the outer battlement of the Moro.

The winding channel which leads from the sea to the harbor passes
through low hills and broad meadows covered with rank verdure, cocoanut
groves, and fishing hamlets. Thrifty palms and intensely green bananas
line the way, with here and there upon the pleasant banks a charming
country-house in the midst of a garden fragrant with flowers. So close
is the shore all the while that one seems to be navigating upon the
land, gliding among trees and over greensward rather than upon blue
water. Steaming slowly up the Santiago River, we presently pass a sharp
angle of the hills, leading into a broad sheltered bay, upon whose banks
stands the rambling old city of Santiago de Cuba, built on a hillside
like Tangier, in Africa, and it is almost as Oriental as the capital of
Morocco. The first and most conspicuous objects to meet the eye are the
twin towers of the ancient cathedral, which have withstood so many
earthquakes.

This city,