prevent their meeting. He could easily put an end to the visits by giving strict orders to allow no lady of any kind, Turk or Christian, to enter his

rooms.

He must have been successful, for as the spring came on I heard no more of the matter.

I went to the war in Greece, leaving the dull routine of life in Stamboul for the more exciting scenes of Thessaly. At the front I met one of the young of ficers who lived in Prinkipos. He told me that he knew the Hamil girls, and that they were having a very unhappy time with their old uncle. It seems that the old man had heard how very unconventionally the girls were behaving, and had put them under special guards. "I shouldn't be surprised to hear of their running away," he said. "Of course their uncle is right. They can't keep any reputation and carry on as they do. But, on the other hand, I don't much blame the girls. I know what I am talking about. Life in a harem cannot be happy for a woman with an education. Either we must abolish the seclusion of women or restrict their education. My little girl shall not, so long as existing conditions last, learn one word of French. It will only make her unhappy. She can live best as her mother and her grandmothers did before her. Let her write her letters in her own language, and read the Koran. Instead of French, let her learn housewifery and nursing. No one knows better than I, who was educated in Paris and Berlin, that our present system of the harem cannot last. But one woman cannot break it down, nor a band of them. It is only when men with my views come into power that the emancipation can come."

I had said nothing about my knowledge of poor Esme's struggle with her ideas of the outside world, and of her consequent discontent.

On the very day on which I returned to Constantinople I heard the news of Esmé which was being gossiped all over town. The women buying in the shops, the men sipping their coffee in the coffeehouses, even the little beggars in the streets, were telling each other how Esmé Hanoum, daughter to the famous old

Hamil Pacha, had been found dead in her room, all covered with blood. They did not at first recognize that it was suicide. This is a form of mania little known in their simple life. But gradually there came into the current gossip a story of how a pistol was found by her side, which she had stolen from her uncle's room. And then they would shake their heads and wonder why. They did not know any of the details of her life. They only knew she was a great lady, and had plenty of coffee and fine clothes, and ought to have been happy.

In the high world I learned the fuller story. There I found great commotion. The drawing-rooms were filled with talk, and the friends of the young girl grieved many days, for she had been very lovable.

A few of us knew that she had been also very unhappy.

Meanwhile the Turkish police, prying agents of the palace, had been questioning every one. They worried Mrs. Fowler, who was back in Constantinople on an inopportune visit, into nervous prostration because it happened that she had been observed with Esmé the day before the suicide, and of course found out nothing by their investigation. Her family told that she had often threatened to take her life; but her old uncle said he had never believed it; he thought women were too great cowards. I do not think the police ever went to Fischer, or heard that he was in any way connected with the unhappy affair. They drew up a report on the case, which will be used as a threatening code of conduct in the harem world for years to come.

A letter written by Esme before she shot herself was ample evidence of the unhappiness which comes to a daughter of the Prophet who seeks too much liberty. She was determined to die as an example to her people of how unhappy is the condition of the educated woman in a harem. Her appeal carried no sound to Turkish women. They could not understand it.

But I shall never think of the women of the East without remembering poor Esmé's letter, and the heart-breaking line which said, "I die because I cannot be free."

O the American fleet which through many weary weeks had been waiting for action in grim impatience at Key West the news of the resolution of Congress and of the President's order to sail brought great relief. The order came in the late afternoon of April 21, but there were still some ships to coal, some more detailed instructions to be received from Washington, and it was not until the next morning at half past six o'clock that they got under way and steamed slowly off toward Havana. The blockade proclaimed by the President covered Havana and all ports east and west between Cardenas and Bahia Honda, as well as Cienfuegos on the south coast, from which a railroad ran to the capital city. It was generally believed at the outbreak of the war that Havana, which drew most of its supplies from the United States, would soon be starved into sur

VOL. XCVIII.-No. 587-92

render when cut off from the continent and with nothing but a desolated country behind it to turn to for relief. Events showed that this conception, a perfectly natural one at the time, was absolutely unfounded. Either Havana had vast stores on hand, or the surrounding country and the blockade - running through the southern ports were able to supply the city, or all three sources combined were sufficient for that object. Whatever the explanation, certain it is that although there was a great deal of suffering in the capital, there is no indication that at the end of the war it was, as a military position, much nearer to surrender on account of starvation than at the beginning of hostilities. Nevertheless, with the theory then prevalent as to the desperate condition of the city whose fall meant the end of Spanish rule in Cuba, the American blockade closed tightly

over Havana, and in the opening days of the war Spanish vessels and steamships plying to the blockaded port fell rapidly into the hands of the Americans, until this commerce was practically stopped or destroyed.

Blockading and prize-taking were not, however, the sole duties of the American fleet. It was obvious that any attempt to get into the harbor of Havana through its narrow channel crammed with mines would be at once mad and useless. But it was at the same time very desirable to keep open and unprotected, so far as possible, the other harbors, because at that moment the theory was that we should either land a large army to proceed against Havana, or important expeditions to cooperate with the insurgents in a movement to cut off the capital from the interior. This theory, whether strongly or lightly held, was soon set aside by events and never acted upon-a very fortunate thing, for it rested upon a gross underestimate of the strength of Havana and of the Spanish forces, and upon an equally gross over-estimate of the numbers and efficiency of the insurgents. In the early days of the war, however, it had sufficient strength to affect the naval operations near Havana, but very luckily led, practically, only to work which it would have been well to do in any event.

The first affair growing out of these conditions, and the first action of the war, occurred at Matanzas. It was discovered that the Spaniards were establishing batteries and raising new fortifications at that port, and on April 27 Admiral Sampson's flag-ship, the New York, supported by the monitor Puritan and the unarmored cruiser Cincinnati, bombarded the defences. The Spanish shooting was very bad, only three shots coming near the New York, and none hitting the Cincin nati, which was much exposed. The American shooting, on the other hand, was good, from the great 13-inch guns of the Puritan to the rapid-fires of the Cincinnati. The Spanish batteries and earth-works were badly shattered and broken up, and many guns dismounted. As the Captain - General of Cuba announced that only one mule was killed, we may conclude with almost absolute certainty that there must have been a very considerable loss of life among the troops exposed to the American fire. Ex

cept as a warning to the Spaniards, and as a test of American marksmanship, the affair of April 27 at Matanzas was of trifling importance, although great attention was given to it at the moment because it was the first action of the war by land or sea. But while the fleet was thus carrying out its orders by its vigorous blockade, by opening a bombardment on the lesser ports, and by harassing the coast batteries and garrisons, events were occurring elsewhere which determined the future course of the war.

On April 23 the President called for 125,000 volunteers, and on April 25 Congress adopted a formal declaration of war, which stated that war had existed since April 21-an unquestioned truth. On the 26th the President announced that the United States, although not a signatory, would adhere to the agreement of Paris, and permit no privateers. The wisdom of this prompt and righteous declaration was seen at once in the approval which it received abroad, and in the embarrassment which it caused to Spain, where hopes were entertained that, all social and national efficiency being dead, something might still be done by legalized piracy. International opinion was still further conciliated by our giving thirty days to all Spanish ships to leave our ports. Thus, while Congress was voting money and preparing a bill for war revenue, while the call for volunteers was going through the land, while camps were being formed, men mustered in, the regulars brought together from all parts of the country and mobilized at Tampa, we were settling rapidly and judiciously our relations with the other powers of the earth. There was never a moment when any European power could or would have dared to interfere with us, although columns of speculations, predictions, and mysterious warnings filled the newspapers on this subject. And as there was no danger that any one power would interfere, so after Manila there was no peril to be apprehended from any combination of powers. That was the crisis, and when England refused to join the concert of Europe in interfering with us in the Philippines-an act not to be forgotten by Americans - all possible danger of interference from any quarter was at an end. Nevertheless, as we adjusted our relations to the rest of the world wisely and quickly, when we caught Spain by the

throat, so the rest of the world made haste to define their relations, both to us and to our antagonist.

England declared her neutrality on April 23, the same day on which the Governor-General of Hong-kong requested Commodore Dewey to leave English waters within forty-eight hours-a polite in vitation fraught with much meaning to what remained of Charles V.'s empire in the East. But we were not the only people who had a fighting-fleet in neutral waters. For some time past Spain had been collecting a torpedo-boat flotilla and a squadron of armored cruisers. The fleet thus brought together had come to the Canaries, and thence had proceeded to the Cape Verde Islands. In the days after the Maine explosion, when relations between the two countries were straining to the breaking-point, the movements of these Spanish ships excited intense interest. It was rumored that they were to come to Puerto Rico, and had they done so their arrival would have precipitated war. But they did not start; they remained quietly at the Cape Verde Islands, and when war came they still lingered. It may well be doubted whether

they would have moved at all if they had been in a Spanish harbor, but, unluckily for them, the Cape Verde Islands were Portuguese, and although Portugal was entirely friendly to Spain, she was obliged to issue a proclamation of neutrality on April 29. April 29. Thereupon the Spanish fleet. departed, under orders from Madrid. The light torpedo-boats, unprotected cruisers, and transports went north to the Canaries, and thence to Spain. The fighting-squadron was lost sight of steering westward. This squadron consisted of the Colon, the Almirante Oquendo, the Vizcaya, and the Maria Teresa, armored cruisers of the first class, all new, all the best work of European dock-yards, with heavy batteries of the finest modern rifles, eight inches of armor, and a contract speed of over twenty knots, and of three large torpedoboat - destroyers, the Furor, Pluton, and Terror, just out of English yards, the last expression of Scotch and English building, and with a contract speed of thirty knots. The Squadron, as it appeared on paper and in the naval registers, was, as a whole, powerful in armament, fast, and very formidable. There it was, then, loose on the ocean, and the question

which at once arose and overshadowed all others was where Admiral Cervera and his ships were going, for they represented the Spanish sea power. When they were found and destroyed, the campaign on the Atlantic side would be over, and the expulsion of the Spaniards from the American hemisphere could be effected at the pleasure of the United States. Until they were destroyed no movement could be safely or conclusively undertaken against either Cuba or Puerto Rico. It was the old, ever-recurring problem of the sea power, as crucial and decisive to the United States in the spring of 1898 as it was to Rome when Hannibal faced the legions, or to the English when Napoleon banded all Europe together against Great Britain.

The Spanish fleet was somewhere in the mid-Atlantic; that was all that was known, and speculation was rife as to its destination. The people of the Atlantic seaboard thought that a descent upon the coast towns was at hand-an obviously impossible solution, because in the waters of New England the Spaniards, far removed from any base, would have courted destruction. So this opinion was rejected by the Navy Department. Another opinion was that Cervera was steaming away south ward to cut off the Oregon. Here, unfortunately, there was much greater probability of truth than in the chimera of the descent on the Atlantic coast towns. But the Strategy Board wisely decided that to divide or scatter the fleets in an effort to protect the Oregon would be a mistake of the first order. The great battle-ship must take her chance. Either she would slip by her enemies safely, or, if she met them, she would so cripple them that

their effectiveness would be gone. So the Oregon was left to her fate.

A

Thus two possibilities for the Spanish fleet were considered and set aside. third was that, after making a wide turn, the fleet would return to Spain, and rumors of its reappearance at Cadiz kept coming until the moment when the truth was known. Such a proceeding as this, however, seemed too absurd, even for a Spaniard, to a world which had not yet seen Admiral Camara go back and forth through the Suez Canal; and the authorities in Washington, in consultation with Admiral Sampson, decided that Cervera was intending to do the sensible thing from a naval stand-point, and make for a port from which he could operate toward the relief of Havana. It was further conjectured, and on all the known facts and conditions very wisely conjectured, that the Spanish fleet would come to Puerto Rico, the natural and only strong Spanish base for operations directed toward Cuba. On the speed to be fairly estimated for such a fleet the time of their arrival at Puerto Rico could easily be determined. So it came about, on this theory of the conditions, that soon after noon on May 3 the battle-ships Iowa and Indiana left Key West, whence the flagship New York followed them that night. The rendezvous was at Juruco Cove, about twelve miles east of Havana. There they were joined from the blockading squadron by the two monitors Terror and Amphitrite, the two unarmored cruisers Detroit and Montgomery, the torpedo-boat Porter, the tug Wompatuck, and a collier. Then they started east to find the Spanish fleet. A more ill-assorted squadron it would have been difficult