March 30 Sunday – The Kanawha made the port of Santiago in southern Cuba, where the men “visited the points of historical interest near Santiago” [NY Times Apr. 1, 1902, p.9 “The Kanawha at Santiago”].
Sam’s notebook: “Easter / Sailed early for Santiago. Rough. Arr. 3 p.m. at the Morro Castle. Prado. Queen’s …. [Square] Well kept cats & dogs. No smoking” [NB 45 TS 8].
Sam’s ship log: “Easter Sunday, March 30. Sailed for Santiago de Cuba. Reasonably rough, but not rougher, perhaps, than the seas which had driven us to refuge.
Arrived, 3 p.m., at the Moro, the fortress which overhangs the mouth of the narrow gut up which Hobson groped his way & tried to obstruct it by sinking his coal-ship across it. It takes a military eduction to know why our navy didn’t go ashore with a basket of doughnuts & batter that old shack down.
Meandered (it is the right word, for it is a crooked gut) up and anchored before Santiago.
Went ashore & had a hot walk with members of the gang through the slum-end of the town. Uninviting & uninteresting. The people seemed poor, but they were well fed. Dogs & cats ditto.
Then to the prosperous quarters & examined the outside of a church where Columbus rested his bones for a while—a one night stand, I think.
The Queen’s Garden. Pretty, & full of well dressed women & children.
Finally to the imitation-Prado by the beach, & saw fashion do its possible. Mostly blacks, & modifications of that color.
NO SMOKING.
There was no such sign up, but 6 cigars would cover the output visible.
Returned to the yacht. Cool & pleasant there.
San Juan Hill in view. Rice & the Colonel [Paine] visited it.
The surrounding hills seem bare, all the visible country aspects melancholy & unseductive [MTP].
Livy’s diary: “Mrs Ruth McEnery Stuart & her son came for luncheon & dinner & spent the night. Jervis
came for the night” [MTP: DV161]. Note: Ruth McEnery Stuart (1856-1917), poet and author.