Spain, for the sake of false pride, bigotry, politics and a child king, buried in the depths of the sea thirty-five vessels of her navy, valued at $36,500,000.  By their rusting hulks lie the bodies of more than a thousand gallant tars.  She surrendered in territory to the United States directly Cuba, with a population of 1,500,000 and an area of 45,000 square miles, and Puerto Rico, with a population of 810,000 and an area of 3,670 square miles.  Her total direct loss of territory in square miles was 48,670, and loss in population 2,310,000.  She also jeopardized, probably beyond all future control by her, the Philippine islands, with a population of 8,000,000 and an area of 114,326 square miles.  So that in the end it appears the Spanish kingdom for the sake of the wrong gave up 163,000 square miles of territory and over 10,000,000 of tax-paying population.

This loss was the gain of the United States, which, to bring it about, placed in service a first-class navy, with 10,000 men and fifty effective vessels, and a volunteer and regular army of 278,500 men, of which New York gave the largest number, Pennsylvania next and Illinois the third.

When the present century began Spain was mistress over nearly all of the southern continent of America and over a good share of the northern continent.  With the exception of Brazil, to which the Portuguese held title, practically all of South America was Spanish.  So was Central America, the present Mexico, and nearly a million square miles of the southwestern part of the United States.  The revolutions of the early decades of the century stripped off much of that domain, and now the last shreds of it are also gone.  The same policy of persistent greed and of deadly disregard to the interests of the governed that caused the early revolutions has also caused the later ones, for the sake of which the United States began its interference in the Antilles.

Now nothing is left to the former queen of all the empires and kingdoms which once were subject to her and brought her glory and power among the nations.  Her own sons have read to her the lesson that exploitation cannot continue forever, and that unless the conqueror has regard for the interests of the conquered the seeds of disruption will surely be sown.

CHAPTER LIV.

Personal reminiscences.

Telling How Our Soldiers Lived—­What They, Saw—­How They Fought—­ Hardships Endured—­Bravery Shown in the Face of the Deadly Mauser Bullets as Well as Fever-Stricken Camps, Etc., Etc.

Charles E. Hands, writing from Santiago to the London Mail, says of the wounded after the battle of July 1 and 2: 

There was one man on the road whose left foot was heavily bandaged and drawn up from the ground.  He had provided himself with a sort of rough crutch made of the forked limb of a tree, which he had padded with a bundle of clothes.  With the assistance of this and a short stick he was paddling briskly along when I overtook him.