MORRO CASTLE. 
The route is by boat from any of the boat landings. Fare, 10 cents each way. 
For the beginning of the Morro we must go back to the days oi 
Francis Drake, the Englishman of the sixteenth century who was the 
scourge of Spain on sea and land, in the Old World and the New; 
that El Draque, “the Dragon,” who was well hated of all Spaniards 
while he lived, and over whom, dead, Lope de Vega sang a psean. In 
1585, returning from the sack of Carthagena, Drake appeared before 
Havana and threatened the town; but there was little here to tempt 
him then, and after a brief blockade, the Englishmen withdrew, making 
no other spoil of Cuba, as the journal of one of them runs, than “re¬ 
freshing themselves with store of Turtles’ Eggs by Day and taking 250 
Turtles by Night, which, being powdered and dried, did them much 
Service.” But Drake’s menace of Havana was not without its effect. 
“This event,” writes the Spanish historian Arrete, “and more probably 
the perfect conviction how essential the safety of the port was to the 
security of trade and navigation between the two kingdoms of Old 
Spain and New Spain, enlightened the King, our Lord Felipe II., sur- 
named The Prudent, to foresee, with his great policy and incomparable 
penetration, that what was then but a temptation to a few private cor- 
ON THE RAMPARTS LOOKING NORTH. 
63 
