Excerpt from In the Footsteps of Cortes

Crowning a lofty eminence on the opposite shore of Havana Har bor stands La Cabana, the greatest fortress in the new world, and which cost the treasury of Spain the round sum of fourteen million dollars. When the accounts were presented to the Spanish monarch it is related that he went to his palace window and looked steadily westward. On being asked his reason for so doing he is said to have remarked that he expected to see the castle walls rising above the horizon, since it was large enough to have cost so much. From the water's edge a paved and covered way leads upward to the fortress.

The main entrance is on the north side toward the ocean. Beyond the drawbridge crossing the moat is a royal gateway bearing the arms of Spain. Over the heavy doors, on a semi-circular tablet of marble, is an inscription giving the date on which the construction of Cabana was begun, its name, and the names of the various officials engaged in the work. Immediately above this is an enormous shield of brown sandstone, on which are carved the arms of his Catholic Majesty, Car los III. As we looked upon this massive entrance it seemed that its most fitting inscription would be those portentous words of Dante, All hope abandon, ye who enter here. For, of all the innumerable throngs who have passed within these walls, few there have been who did not, literally, leave hope behind.

The heights of La Cabana overlook El Morro, and Antonelli, the engineer who designed the latter fortress, once said while standing here He who takes the position of the Cabana will have the city also. Unfortunately for the Spaniards, however, these prophetic words were not heeded, but were recalled many years after his death, when, from this same hill in 1762, the British attacked the weakest side of the Morro, and captured Havana. The following year, within three months after the evacuation of Havana by the British, work was begun on the castle of Cabana. It was built by convict labor from Mexico, and was completed in a year. But 'it was a case of lockingthe stable after the horse had been stolen, for, although El Castillo de San Carlos de la Cabana was the greatest fortress in the new world, and mounted more than 200 guns, it has never fired a shot to repel an enemy. Its silent guns speak only to salute an incoming na val vessel, bound on some peaceful errand to the quaint old city.

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