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Now, therefore, I, William McKinley, President of the United States, in order to enforce the said resolution, do hereby declare and proclaim that the United States of America has instituted and will maintain a blockade of the north coast of Cuba, including ports on said coast between Cardenas and Bahia Honda, and the port of Cienfuegos on the south coast of Cuba, aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and the law of nations applicable to such cases.
"At least, his excellency, the governor, is not able to leave his house." "Ah! He is ill, then?" "Ill in spirit, yes," smiled Senor Honda. "Will you be good enough to explain?" Montez asked, anxiously. "Don Luis, it was I, Manuel Honda, who confined his excellency to his official dwelling and placed a guard about the buildings." "Oh? Is there a revolution, then, in the state of Bonista?"
New Granada was freed from the Spaniards, and on August 9, two days after the battle, the viceroy, Samana, hastily evacuated Bogota, fleeing in such precipitate haste that in thirty hours he reached Honda, usually a journey of three days.
As the two approached my hiding-place, Nobs reduced his speed, and the stallion, evidently only too glad of the respite, dropped into a trot. It was at this gait that he passed me; my rope-hand flew forward; the honda, well down, held the noose open, and the beautiful bay fairly ran his head into it. Instantly he wheeled to dash off at right angles.
But our conductor simply threw the stones, whereas the goat-herd uses the aloe-fibre honda, or sling, that one sees hanging by dozens in the Mexican shops. We pass near Churubusco, and along the line by which the American army reached Mexico. The field of lava which they crossed is close at our right hand; and just on the other side of it lie Tisapán and our friend Don Alejandro's cotton-factory.
However, as I had only brought a very limited kit aboard the Idzumi, I decided to take everything, since it would all go into a small portmanteau. Meanwhile, the skipper of the Kinshiu had been signalled to have a cabin prepared for me, and for him and Captain Honda, the officer in command of the troops, to repair on board the Idzumi to receive their instructions.
He was studying the honda, also of rawhide, pressed flat when soaked and riveted in shape, a plaited button on the end of the lariat proper to keep it from slipping through the hole. "Letters cut in this," Gulick announced. "T. H. Who's that stand for?" All went silent for a time, thinking; then Hiram Hooker said quietly, as if what he suggested mattered but little: "Tehachapi Hank."
In six days they reach Honda, on the Magdalena River, where, until lately, they were embarked on rafts for a voyage of fourteen days to Savanilla. At the present time, an American company has established a service of flat-bottomed steamers which cover the distance in seven days, thus reducing the risks of the journey by one-half. But they are still terrible.
The town lies on both sides of the chasm, which is spanned by a stone bridge of a single arch, with abutments nearly four hundred feet in height. The view of this wonderful cleft, either from above or below, is one of the finest of its kind in the world. Honda is as far superior to Tivoli, as Tivoli is to a Dutch village, on the dead levels of Holland.
In its musty vaulted dungeons were still the massive, rust-corroded irons for feet, waist and neck of prisoners of the old brutal days; blind owls stared upon us; once the boy brought down with his honda, or slung-shot, one of the bats that circled uncannily above our heads.