There is a channel on either side of that island, and both were reputed to be guarded by torpedoes.

The Spaniards had an enormous stock of munitions of war--modern German guns enough to have riddled the fleet of American cruisers--and why did they not have torpedoes?
They had the Mauser rifle, which has wonderful range, and ten millions of smokeless powder cartridges.

Marksmen could sweep the decks of a ship with Mausers at the distance of a mile, and with the smokeless cartridges it would have been mere conjecture where the sharpshooters were located.

There are rows of armor-piercing steel projectiles from Germany still standing around rusting in the Spanish batteries, and they never did any more than they are doing.

It is said--and there is every probability of the truth of the story--that some of these bolts would not fit any gun the Spaniards had mounted.