Cabana is the prison for offenders against the State, and the scene of innumerable executions.  From an exterior or salient corner of the secretary’s office of the headquarters there leads a subterranean passage 326 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 1.86 high, excavated in the rock.  It conducts to the sea, debouching at the mouth of a sewer, 87 meters from the Morro wharf.  At exactly 132 meters along the road rising from the Morro pier or wharf to the Cabana, there will be found by excavating the rock on the left of the road, at a depth of 3 meters, a grating, on opening which passage will be made into a road 107 meters long, 1.6 high, and 1.42 wide, leading to the same exit as the Cabana secret way.  These passages are most secret, as all believe that the grating of the sewer, seen from the sea, is a drain.

The battery of Santa Clara is the most interesting of the fortifications of Havana, and one of the most important.  It lies about 100 yards from the shore of the gulf, at a point where the line of hills to the westward runs back (either naturally or artificially) into quarries, thus occupying a low salient backed by a hill.  Here are three new Krupp 11-inch guns, designed to protect El Principe, the land side of Havana.  It is 187 feet above sea level and completely dominates Havana, the bay, Morro, Cabana, the coast northward, Atares, and from east around to south, the approaches of the Marianao Road, Cristina, and the Western Railroad for about 3 kilometers, i.e., between Cristina and a cut at that distance from the station.  Principe gives fire upon Tulipan, the Cerro, the Hill of the Jesuits, and the valley through which passes the Havana Railroad, sweeping completely with its guns the railroad as far as the cut at Cienaga, 2-1/2 to 3 miles away.  It dominates also the hills southward and westward toward Puentes Grandes and the Almendarez River, and country extending toward Marianao, also the Calzada leading to the cemetery and toward Chorrera; thence the entire sea line (the railroad to Chorrera is partly sheltered by the slope leading to Principe.  This is by all means the strongest position about Havana which is occupied.  Lying between it and the hill of the Cerro is the hill of the Catalan Club, right under the guns of the work and about one-half mile away.  The Marianao Road is more sheltered than the Havana, as it runs near the trees and hill near the Cerro.  The only points which dominate the hill of the Principe lie to the south and southeast in the direction of Jesus del Monte and beyond Regla.  On its southern, southeastern, and southwestern faces the hill of Principe is a steep descent to the calzada and streets below.  The slope is gradual westward and around by the north.  From this hill is one of the best views of Havana and the valley south.  El Principe lies about one-half mile from the north coast, from which hills rise in gradual slopes toward the work.  It is Havana gossip that El Principe is always held by the Spanish