HAVANA PASSENGER-BOATS AROUND THE SPANISH CRUISER "VIZCAYA" ON A VISITING DAY. (SEE PAGE 95.) friendly and that my orders contemplated nothing further than the ordinary visit of a man-of-war. He expressed his appreciation of my commands against giving liberty on shore to the Maine's crew, and asked, as had other officials, how long the Maine would remain at Havana. To this question I always made the same reply, viz., that when our war-vessels were in telegraphic communication with the Navy Department it was not customary to include in their orders the time of their departure from a port; they were required to await further orders. I repeated to General Blanco what I had already said to General Parrado, that I hoped the Spanish men-of-war would reciprocate by reviving their friendly visits to the United States; that the cordiality of their reception could not be doubted. An exceptionally pleasing ceremonial feature the members of the council, and was received with cordiality. I think the members of the autonomistic government had really felt that I was trying to evade a visit, so I was glad to convince them to the contrary. The gentlemen of the council returned my visit promptly. They were received with honors, and shown through the Maine. We greatly enjoyed their visit. Near the close, refreshments were served in my cabin, and Señor Galvaez made a complimentary speech in Spanish, which was interpreted to me briefly. The last thing that I desired was to involve myself in the politics of the island. I conceived that it would be highly injudicious on my part, as a foreign naval officer, to seem to take sides in any way, either by expression or by action. I made a response to Señor Galvaez's speech, assuring him that it had given me much gratification to make my visits to the council, and renewing my statement that I should have made an earlier visit had I known that it would have been agreeable. I welcomed them formally to the ship, and expressed the hope that they would return with their families and friends, and make social and informal visits whenever they thought they could find pleasure on board. Believing that the gentlemen of the council were desirous that I should give some expression of approval of the autonomistic form of government, I evaded the point, and said only: "I beg to express my admiration for the high purpose of your honorable body." My reply was afterward printed in at least two newspapers in Havana, but the terms made me favor autonomistic government for the island. I disliked this result when I considered it in connection with the censorship, but raised no protest against it. Judging from outward evidence, the autonomistic government was then unpopular and without effective influ ence. The next day the families and friends of the members of the council came aboard, and were received by me and the officers. It was a merry party, and many evidences of good will were given. This ended the only frictional incident prior to the destruction of the Maine. While lying in the landlocked harbor of Havana, the Maine looked much larger than her actual size; she seemed enormous. Doubtless her strength was overestimated by the populace of Havana. The people apparently believed that we had sent our best ship to make a demonstration. There was much misconception on all sides, even among Spanish officers, as to the fighting strength of the United States navy. Evidently the Spaniards did not regard us as their equals in battle; their traditional pride made them overestimate their own fighting ability-or underestimate ours. On the other hand, to show how people may differ, I have never known it to be entertained in our own service that the Spanish navy could match ours. The Spanish naval officers that I met were alert, intelligent, and well informed professionally. They all had their polished national manner. Superficially, at least, their vessels were admirable; they seemed clean and well kept. Their etiquette was carefully observed, but apparently their crews were not comparable with ours, either in physique or in intelligence. I saw very little drilling of any kind on board the Spanish men-of-war at Havana. After the destruc tion of the Maine, General Weyler was credited in the press with the remark that "the Maine was indolent." If General Weyler did in fact make the remark, he must have got advices relative to the Maine that were not well based on observation. While at Havana, the Maine had no drills on shore, as a matter of course, but afloat she carried out her routine of drills day after day, except that she omitted "night quarters" and "clearing ship for action," as likely to give rise to misunderstanding. She also exercised her boats under oars and under sails, and had gun-pointing practice with the aid of a launch steaming about the harbor. In this latter practice, care was taken that our guns should never point toward the Spanish men-of-war. Every morning and evening the crew were put through the development drill. Most of the drills of the Maine were in plain view from without, by reason of her structure; she had no bulwarks on her main or upper deck. After the destruction of the Maine, and while the Vizcaya and Oquendo were in the harbor, we could observe no drills taking place on board those vessels, although it is possible that they might have gone on without our being able to observe them. There was much ship-visiting on board. In everything they did, except in respect to etiquette, the practised nautical eye could not fail to note their inferiority in one degree or another to the vessels of our own squadron at Key West. Our vessels were then having "general quarters for action" three times a week, and were keeping up their other drills, including nightdrills, search-light practice, etc. The vessels of the Vizcaya class, below in the captain's cabin and officers' quarters, were one long stretch of beautiful woodwork, finer than on board our own vessels. The smaller guns of their primary batteries, and the rapid-firing guns of their secondary batteries, were disposed between the turrets on two decks in such dovetailed fashion that in order to do great damage an enemy needed only to hit anywhere in the region of the funnels. I remarked several times-once to Admiral Sampson, who was then Captain Sampson of the court of inquiry on the destruction of the Maine-that the Spanish vessels would be all aflame within ten minutes after they had gone into close action, and that their quarters at the guns would be a slaughter-pen. Future events justified the statement. Afterward, when I boarded the wreck of the Infanta Maria Teresa near Santiago de Cuba, her armored deck was below water, but above that there was not even a splinter of woodwork in sight; in fact, there was hardly a cinder left of her decks or of that beautiful array of bulkheads. It may have been that the Maine remained longer in Havana than had originally been intended by the Navy Department. It was expected, I believe, to relieve her by another vessel; which vessel, I do not know. I had hoped that the Indiana or the Massachusetts would be sent to dispel the prevailing ignorance among the Spanish people in regard to the strength and efficiency of our ships. The department may not have accepted my views. Before reciting the details immediately connected with the destruction of the Maine, it may be said that I did not expect she would be blown up, either from interior or exterior causes, although precautions were taken in both directions. Nevertheless, I believed that she could be blown up from the outside, provided a sufficient number of persons of evil disposition, and with the conveniences at hand, were free to conspire for the purpose. It was necessary to trust the Spanish authorities in great degree for protection from without. I believe that the primary cause of the destruction of the Maine was an explosion under the bottom of the ship, as reported by the court of inquiry. How it was produced, or whether it was produced by anybody intentionally, I do not know; therefore I have carefully avoided accusation. The facts of the explosion will be described in my next paper. MARK TWAIN IN CALIFORNIA. HERE was a subtle and inexplicable means of transmitting news and gossip forward and backward over the transcontinental trail, in the old, old days when we traveled "the Plains across" to California. Imagine a long caravan of emigrants stretched over the vast and comparatively unknown region lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean, numbering many thousands, but broken into innumerable bands and companies, each company traveling in its own way, several of these combining to present a formidable front while passing through the haunts of hostile and predatory Indians, but often passing and repassing one another when some travel-worn party would be camped by the trail for rest and recuperation, and all receiving in some unexplained manner tolerably accurate tidings of every other company then on the sinuous trail that was traced across the heart of the continent. Here and there, at exceedingly rare intervals, we found the deserted cabin of some vanished explorer or trapper, in which were posted the rude bulletins of those who had preceded us, leaving their names and ports of hail, with scraps of information concerning water, grass, fords, and other matters necessary to the comfort and safety VOL. LVIL-13. of the emigrant. But, for the most part, the birds of the air (which were neither numerous nor sociable) appeared to have told us of the personal characteristics, names, haps and mishaps, of all who were on the trail before or behind us. In this way we learned that in the great concourse of marching men always just behind us and never quite catching up with us were two brothers, who were traveling with a company known as the "Missouri fellers," and who were individually described as the "two Clemenses." Our curiosity was languidly stimulated by this vague characterization, and when, after their family name had been hopelessly juggled with in the rude vernacular of the Plains, we were told that these Clemenses, or whatever their real cognomen might be, were expecting to find official pap in the new Territory that had begun to loom in what was known as the Washoe country, we felt for the unseen young Missourians a certain respectful pity. In the course of time, but years afterward, when swarms of miners had covered the Comstock Lode, and fabulous riches were said to be locked up in the sterile Washoe country, then hanging on the arid skirts of California, and adding to the desolation of western Utah, the Territory of Nevada was organized. James W. Nye was governor, and Orion S. Clemens was secretary of this new subdivision of the republic. We never heard that the other brother, Samuel L. Clemens, secured official recognition, and it is more than likely that the reports of the great expectations of the Clemenses were, like so much of the Plains gossip, mere idle rumors of the camps. Striking off, as our own party did, into the northwestern part of the State, and entering the Sacramento valley by the way of the Feather and Yuba rivers, we lost all track of the Clemens brothers, and when, long afterward, we heard that Orion was in office, we dimly related him to the Missourians whose shadowy company had attended our journey across the Great Plains. The Civil War came on, and, giving up my paper in Marysville (originally known as Nye's Ranch), a long sojourn in Washington interrupted my California acquaintance. Mark Twain was still in the "sage-brush" group of newspaper writers, and when I returned to take up my residence in San Francisco, I was advised to read certain amusing squibs and sketches in a Nevada newspaper (the "Virginia City Enterprise"), if I would see specimens of genuine American humor-frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious. These contributions, when signed at all, were over the somewhat puzzling signature of " Mark Twain." In due course of time their author crossed the mountains, and found casual employment on the "Morning Call," San Francisco. When Bret Harte introduced me to the eagle-eyed young man of tousled hair and slow speech, I found at last the missing member of the Clemenses, and we exchanged such information concerning our experiences on the Plains as had been impossible of transmission up and down the hard road we traveled. Clemens's fugitive pieces in the daily newspapers gave him some local reputation as a humorist, but not even his most intimate friends suspected the existence of the genius which was destined to make the name of "Mark Twain" world-famous. And when, in 1867, the proprietors of the "Alta California," a daily newspaper of which I was then the managing editor, came to me with a proposition that the office should advance to Clemens the sum needed to pay his expenses on a trip into the Mediterranean, on condition that he should write letters to the paper, I was not surprised that they should regard the scheme with grave doubt of its paying them for their outlay. But the persuasiveness of Clemens's fast friend and admirer, Colonel John McComb (then a member of our editorial staff), turned the scale, and Mark Twain was sent away happy on his voyage of adventure and observation, sailing from New York on the steamer Quaker City. His letters to the "Alta California" made him famous. It was my business to prepare one of these letters for the Sunday morning paper, taking the topmost letter from a goodly pile that was stacked in a pigeonhole of my desk. Clemens was an indefatigable correspondent, and his last letter was slipped in at the bottom of a tall stack. It would not be quite accurate to say that Mark Twain's letters were the talk of the town; but it was very rarely that readers of the paper did not come into the office on Mondays to confide to the editors their admiration of the writer, and their enjoyment of his weekly contributions. The California newspapers copied these letters, with unanimous approval and disregard of the copyrights of author and publisher. When Clemens returned to San Francisco, it was to find himself a celebrity. He accepted the situation without demur or inordinate pride. And when, after a short visit to the Hawaiian Islands, he prepared a lecture to be delivered in Mercantile Library Hall, San Francisco, he deprecatingly forestalled public opinion by adding at the bottom of his published announcements: "Trouble will begin at 8 o'clock P. M." To him the trouble impending appeared very real, and he faced the ordeal with many misgivings. But the lecture was highly successful. It gave San Francisco people their first near view of their popular humorist. Some of his friends had organized a claque to encourage the débutant and rouse the enthusiasm of the audience; shrieks of laughter and thunders of applause had been contrived to be launched at appropriate intervals. Some of these kindly meant demonstrations were ill-timed. No matter; the unpurchased suffrages of the people soon overwhelmed the less discriminating volleys of the claque. The lecturer, to his great surprise, rode triumphantly into favor on the swelling tide of popular applause. Mark Twain's method as a lecturer was distinctly unique and novel. His slow, deliberate drawl, the anxious and perturbed expression of his visage, the apparently painful effort with which he framed his sentences, and, above all, the surprise that spread over his face when the audience roared with delight or rapturously applauded the finer passages of his word-painting, were unlike anything of the kind they had ever |