Three hundred or three hundred and fifty yards farther in we passed what the sailors of the fleet call "Hobson's choice," the steam-collier _Merrimac_. She lay in deep water, about midway from shore to shore, and all that could be seen of her were the tops of her masts and about two feet of her smoke-stack. If the channel were narrow and were in the middle of the passage, she would have blocked it completely; but apparently it is wider than her length, and vessels drawing twenty feet or more of water could go around her without touching bottom. It is a little remarkable that both combatants should have tried to obstruct this channel and that neither should have succeeded. The location chosen by the Spaniards seemed to me to be a better one than that selected by Hobson; but it is so near the mouth of the harbor that the chance of reaching it with a vessel in the glare of our search-lights and under the fire of our guns was a very slight one. The _Reina Mercedes_ reached it, but was disabled before she could get into position.[5] Beyond the _Merrimac_ the entrance to the harbor widens a little, but the shores continue high and steep for a distance of a mile or more. At intervals of a few hundred yards, however, beautiful deep coves run back into the high land on either side, and at the head of every one the eye catches a glimpse of a little settlement of half a dozen houses with red-tiled roofs, or a country villa shaded by palms and half hidden in shrubbery and flowers. One does not often see, in the tropics or elsewhere, a harbor entrance that is more striking and picturesque than the watery gateway which leads from the ocean to the spacious upper bay of Santiago. It does not look like an inlet of the sea, but suggests rather a tranquil, winding river, shut in by high, steep ramparts of greenery, with here and there an opening to a beautiful lateral cove, where the dark masses of chaparral are relieved by clumps of graceful, white-stemmed palms and lighted up by the solid sheets of bright-red flowers which hide the foliage of the _flamboyam_, or flame-tree. As ours was the first vessel that had entered the harbor in nearly two months, and as we were flying the Red Cross flag, our arrival naturally caused great excitement in all the little settlements and at all the villas along the shores. Men, women, and children ran down to the water's edge, waving their hats and handkerchiefs or brandishing their arms in joyous welcome, and even old, gray-haired, and feeble women, who could not get as far as the shore, stood in front of their little houses, now gazing at us in half-incredulous amazement, and then crossing themselves devoutly with bowed heads, as if thanking God that siege and starvation were over and help and food at hand.