increased the excise charges to such an extent as to kill the industry outright. For a long time afterward the ore lay undisturbed in the Cobre "pockets," until the attention of Americans was turned this way. Their first iron and copper claims in these mountains were recognized by the Cuban government about seventeen years ago. Three Yankee corporations have developed rich tracts of mining territory hereabouts, built railways from the coast to their works on the hills and exported, ore to the United States. The oldest of these companies employed 2,000 men, and had 1,600 cars and a fleet of twenty steamers for the transportation of its output. The Carnegie Company, whose product was shipped to Philadelphia, also employed upwards of a thousand men. SANTIAGO DE CUBA. At last an abrupt termination of the stern, gray cliffs which mark this shore line indicates the proximity of Santiago harbor, and a nearer approach reveals the most picturesque fort or castle, as well as one of the oldest, to be found on the western hemisphere. An enormous rounding rock, whose base has been hollowed into great caverns by the restless Caribbean, standing just at the entrance of the narrow channel leading into the harbor, is carried up from the water's edge in a succession of walls, ramparts, towers and turrets, forming a perfect picture of a rock-ribbed fortress of the middle ages. This is the famous castle of San Jago, the Moro, which antedates the more familiar fortress of the same name in Havana harbor by at least a hundred years. Words are of little use in describing this antique, Moorish-looking stronghold, with its crumbling, honey-combed battlements, queer little flanking turrets and shadowy towers, perched upon the face of a dun-colored cliff 150 feet high--so old, so odd, so different from anything in America with which to compare it. A photograph, or pencil sketch is not much better, and even a paint brush could not reproduce the exact shadings of its time-worn, weather-mellowed walls--the Oriental pinks and old blues and predominating yellows that give it half its charm. Upon the lowermost wall, directly overhanging the sea, is a dome-shaped sentry box of stone, flanked by antiquated cannon. Above it the lines of masonry are sharply drawn, each guarded terrace receding upon the one next higher, all set with cannon and dominated by a massive tower of obsolete construction.