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About three miles East-South-East of him he detected the gleaming white walls of a number of buildings, which he judged to be a portion of the town of Santiago; beyond it rose a curiously-shaped, double-coned mountain; away on his right lay the table-land of Mariel; and joyous sight through a break in the rising ground to the southward he caught a glimpse of the sea, with, far away on the utmost verge of the horizon, an appearance of land, which he conjectured must be the Isle of Pines.
Along the coast are numerous harbors, large and small, that are or, by dredging, could be made available for commercial purposes. Among these, on the north coast, from west to east, are Bahia Honda, Mariel, Havana, Matanzas, Nuevitas, Nipe Bay, and Baracoa. On the south, from east to west, are Guantanamo, Santiago, Manzanillo, Cienfuegos, and Batabano.
The lands most celebrated for their fertility are the districts of Xagua, Trinidad, Matanzas and Mariel. Notwithstanding the want of great rivers and the unequal fertility of the soil, the island of Cuba, by its undulated surface, its continually renewed verdure, and the distribution of its vegetable forms, presents at every step the most varied and beautiful landscape.
The Newport was close at hand at the time, and a prize crew made up from both ships brought the capture in. The third vessel taken was the schooner Padre de Dios, Master Mateo Herrera, laden with fish. It was taken by the Newport off Mariel, and was brought in by a petty officer and a prize crew. All three accepted one blank shot apiece as sufficient
The objects most visible at a distance, and most celebrated by navigators, are the Pan de Matanzas, a truncated cone which has the form of a small monument; the Arcos de Canasi, which appear between Puerto Escondido and Jaruco, like small segments of a circle; the Mesa de Mariel, the Tetas de Managua, and the Pan de Guaixabon.
The Havannah is well defended, and its works rival those of the most important fortified towns of Europe; the Torreones, and the fortifications of Cogimar, Jaruco, Matanzas, Mariel, Bahia Honda, Batabano, Xagua and Trinidad might resist for a considerable time the assaults of an enemy; but on the other hand two-thirds of the island are almost without defence, and could scarcely be protected by the best gun-boats.
The government tug Leyden, which on the second day of May left Key West with a Cuban expedition, returned to port, giving the following account of her voyage: She proceeded to a certain point near Mariel, and landed five men, with four boxes of ammunition and two horses. General Acosta penetrated to the interior, where he communicated with the forces of the insurgents.
One captive was seen taking another to port on the morning of May 9th. Both are prizes of the gunboat Newport, and were captured between Mariel and Havana. It was about sunrise, just after an inexplicable shot had been fired from a Havana battery, that a dispatch boat off Morro Castle sighted the Newport with a big Norwegian tramp steamer, the Bratsberg, following obediently.
The Hawk ceased firing, and manned a relief-boat just as the Spaniard ran high and dry on a reef, under cover of Fort Mariel.
Two miles east of Mariel the hunted Spaniard broke for the narrow harbor mouth, and Lieutenant Hood's jackies, pumping steel across the moonlit waters, groaned in the fear that she might escape. The raining six-pound shells upset the pilot, however, and the fleeing ship struck hard on the bar at the west side of the entrance and stuck fast.
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