econnaissance in force, to ascertain the strength of
the enemy in different locations in eastern Cuba"; but Colonel Babcock
certainly gave me to understand that the attack was to be a serious one,
and that it would be made with the whole strength of General Shafter's
command. The matter is of no particular importance now, except in so far
as the information given me by Colonel Babcock indicates the views and
intentions of the War Department two weeks before Admiral Cervera's
fleet took refuge in Santiago harbor.

I left Port Tampa for Key West on the Plant-line steamer _Mascotte_ at
half-past ten o'clock Saturday evening, May 7. The long, narrow, and
rather sinuous channel out of Tampa Bay was marked by a line of buoys
and skeleton wooden frames resting on driven spiles; but there were no
lights for the guidance of the mariner, except one at the outer
entrance, ten or twelve miles from the port; and if the _Mascotte_ had
not been provided with a powerful search-light of her own she would
hardly have been able to find her way to sea, as the night was cloudy
and the buoys were invisible. With the long, slender shaft of her
search-light, however, she probed the darkness ahead, as with a radiant
exploring finger, and picked up the buoys, one after another, with
unfailing certainty and precision. Every two or three minutes a floating
iron balloon, or a skeleton frame covered with sleeping aquatic birds,
would flash into the field of vision ahead, like one of Professor
Pepper's patent ghosts, stand out for a moment in brilliant white relief
against a background of impenetrable darkness, and then vanish with the
swiftness of summer lightning, as the electric beam left it to search
for another buoy farther away.

When I awoke the next morning we were out on the blue, tumbling,
foam-crested water of the Gulf, forty or fifty miles from the Florida
coast. All day Sunday we steamed slowly southward, seeing no vessels
except a Jamaica "fruiter," whose captain shouted to us, as he crossed
our bow, that he had been blown off his course in a recent gale, and
would like to know his position and distance. We should have reached Key
West at half-past two Sunday afternoon; but an accident which disabled
one of the _Mascotte's_ boilers greatly reduced her normal speed, so
that when I went to my state-room at eleven o'clock Sunday evening we
were still twenty or thirty miles from our destination.

Three hours later I was awakened by shoute