iSo THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 



The following letter was delayed in the mails, but may prove of interest to many : 



U. S. S. New Orleans, 

 Off Santiago de Cuba, June n, 1S98. 

 Dear Friend : 



I suppose 3 ? ou will be surprised to hear from me away down here, but you know we 

 are often surprised, so don't drop when you read this. 



The heat here is something terrific and all we do now is to try and keep cool. We 

 have had an exciting and war-like trip ever since we left Key West, May 23, to join 

 Sampson's fleet at Matanzas. 



The New Orleans seems to be the pride of the fleet, as she is the speediest of them 

 all, and as soon as we arrived at Matanzas with Sampson we were put on scout duty, 

 that being a compliment from the Admiral. 



Every night we would be called out to general quarters, but during our career as 

 scouts we came across nothing flying Spanish colors. 



We left Sampson's fleet at Matanzas, Thursday, May 26th, and proceeded to join 

 Schley's fleet at Santiago de Cuba, arriving here Monday, May 30th, bringing the 

 "Sterling," a collier, with us. 



On the way, during the night of May 27th, three shots were fired at us and im- 

 mediately the " Sterling" was ordered to pull for the coast and we were to engage the 

 enemy. We drew up close to her and caught her with the search-lights and the or- 

 der was given by the captain to fire a broadside into her; but just at that critical 

 moment she threw up the signal " Machias" and in a flash everything was ordered 

 secure, and that is all that saved the " Machias" from the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. 



This is one of the examples of the many experiences we had getting here. On ar- 

 riving here we proceeded to coal ship from the ' ' Sterling' ' and I met Pompelly ; if you 

 remember, he's one of the junior boys at N. Y. C. P. He seems to be in the best of 

 health and likes the service very much, but wishes he could get into a scrap, as he 

 says he would like to get mixed up in the fun a little bit himself. Pompelly has the 

 whole thing to himself on the " Sterling," as there is no surgeon on board, and the day 

 we coaled ship he brought a man over to have a finger amputated. 



The harbor of Santiago de Cuba is a very difficult thing to enter, as the mouth is 

 only wide enough for one ship at a time to enter. A broad bay proceeds back 4 or 5 

 miles and at the head is the city of Santiago de Cuba, with a population of about 

 45,000 and 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers. 



In this harbor we have caught the Spanish fleet under the command of Admiral 

 Cervera, as I suppose you have already seen in the New York papers. 



To keep these ships from slipping out of the harbor we sank an old collier known 

 as the " Merrimac," manned by volunteers from the fleet, directly in its mouth and now 

 all the men who are on her are either killed or taken prisoners, which, we do not 

 know. 



On May 31st, before the collier " Merrimac" was sunk in the mouth of the harbor and 

 the day after our arrival, the Spaniards made an attempt to get out of the harbor, but 

 immediately the Iowa, Massachusetts and New Orleans were ordered by the flagship, 

 Brooklyn, to chase them back in again, and in we went. We gave them 162 American 

 liver pills, 6 in. in diameter, and the Iowa and Massachusetts gave them 88 each. 

 After they got enough they turned and went back in. 



When the whole thing was over " Fighting Bob" Evans called to us and said, " H — 1 

 of a good ship you've got there ; she can shoot like h — 1." 



The next event was during the night of June 4th. About 10:15 o'clock a small 

 dark object was seen to move very quickly along in the shore waters and immediately 



