Through this panorama of the past comes the picture of England’s fleet of 200 ships manned by 32,000 men under Albemarle and Pococke, lying in a semicircle off the entrance of the harbor, with old Morro now well equipped for battle. Its thick walls, rugged embattlements, fighting turrets, embrasures, emergency bridges, powder magazines, store rooms, ammunition dumps, secret passages and dark dungeons, and bristling guns, were Spain’s chief bulwark in the defense of Havana. Solid shot and shell from a thousand guns crisscrossed between sea and land, and in the center of the turmoil, defending the fort and the honor of Spain, stood one courageous young officer, Commander Luis Velasco, surrounded by a little group of volunteers, who had sworn to hold the fort or die in its defense. [Illustration: PABLO DESVERNINE. Born in Havana in 1854, and educated at the University of Havana and at Columbia University, New York, Pablo Desvernine y Galdos has long ranked among the foremost members of the Cuban bar. During General Brooke’s Military Governorship at the beginning of the first American intervention he was Secretary of Finance; he was President of the Agricultural Expositions of 1911 and 1912; was Minister to the United States in 1913; and in 1914 was made by President Menocal Secretary of State. Since 1900 he has been Professor of Civil Law in the University of Havana. He is the author of several works on Civil and International Law.] Then, after a month of continuous fighting, came the note from the British, stating that El Morro was undermined and an offer of 24 hours in which to surrender, and Velasco’s reply, in which he informed his enemy that the match might be applied and the walls blown up, but within the breach he would be found still defending the castle. The mine was exploded and the south wall torn asunder, while Velasco, fighting to the last, received the wound that sent him over the Great Divide and soon brought to an end Havana’s defense against the British. Imagination easily recalls the salute of cannon on the following day, announcing the death of one of Spain’s most courageous fighters, while every shot of the defending guns was echoed by one of the British ships, firing as a tribute to the courage of the young officer who had defied their entire fleet for nearly a month. Morro was begun in 1589 by the Italian engineer, J. Bautista Antonelli, and completed in 1597. Little change has occurred during the last two centuries, and its rugged old walls will probably continue to resist the winter storms of the Gulf for centuries to come. Many of Cuba’s patriots and heroic figures have been confined in the dungeons of Morro, including the first President of the Republic, that kind hearted, genial old gentleman of letters, Don Tomas Estrada Palma, who died the victim of base ingratitude on the part of men for whose freedom and happiness he had devoted all of the best years of his life.