Among other things, she says:
"Our fisherman brought in some papers from New York, and what a lot of
lies they contain! My father and all the other officials say that we
have food here for five months--flour, codfish, beans, and
groceries--all brought down from New York, and salted meat from
Montevideo. . . .
"Pa says that if you Americans had attacked Havana when you declared war
it would have surrendered in five hours, but that it is now fortified so
that it is strong as Gibraltar. You know, they built a great big
railroad upon sticks, in front of the forts, and took cars of sand and
dumped them down, so that they have a mound in front of all the forts
about thirty feet wide and ten feet high. I went over the fortifications
yesterday, and I saw fifteen of those immense 12-inch guns. They say
they can shoot twelve miles. We have got 50,000 troops here in Havana,
and 60,000 in the provinces, and some 40,000 volunteers. These are all
veterans, and all the generals say that it would take an army of 200,000
to beat us. The coast is all supplied with telephone and telegraph
wires, so that any time your boats attempt to land we can have a big
force there in a couple of hours to drive them off. Part of Cervera's
fleet is in Santiago. There is so much mystery about this! Whether the
admiral is there or not, no one seems to know. The rest of the fleet,
some fifteen vessels, is somewhere down in the Antilles, and
Captain-General Blanco says they are going to attack your coast in about
three weeks.
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