ere all I could catch."

One touch of kindness makes all the world kin. Even the engineer of the
New York "Sun's" naphtha-launch gave his cherished pipe to a sailor on a
Spanish vessel who had none, and when one of his mates remonstrated with
him, saying, "You're not going to give him your own brier-wood pipe!" he
replied, with a shamefaced smile: "Yes, poor devil! he can't get one
away out here. I can buy another ashore."

Late in the afternoon we made a second round of all the Spanish ships to
collect their letters, and then returned to the _State of Texas_. Mr.
Cobb that same evening submitted the open letters to the United States
prize-court for approval, and I made an arrangement with Mr. E. F.
Knight, war correspondent of the London "Times," who was just starting
for Havana, to take the Cuban letters with him and mail them there. The
letters for Spain were sent to the National Red Cross of Portugal.

CHAPTER III

ON THE EDGE OF WAR

Until the illuminating search-light of war was turned upon the island of
Key West, it was, to the people of the North generally, little more than
a name attached to a small, arid coral reef lying on the verge of the
Gulf Stream off the southern extremity of Florida. Few people knew
anything definitely about it, and to nine readers out of ten its name
suggested nothing more interesting or attractive than Cuban filibusters,
sponges, and cigars. In less than a month, however, after the outbreak
of hostilities, it had become the headquarters, as well as the chief
coaling-station, of two powerful fleets; the news-distributing center
for the whole Cuban coast; the supply-depot to which perhaps a hundred
vessels resorted for water, food, and ammunition; the home station of
all the newspaper despatch-boats cruising in West Indian waters; the
temporary headquarters of more than a hundred newspaper correspondents
and reporters, and the most advanced outpost of the United States on the
edge of war. In view of the importance which the place had at that time,
as well as the importance which it must continue to have, as our naval
base in Cuban waters, a description of it may not be wholly without
interest.

The island on which the city of Key West stands forms one of the links
in a long, curving chain of shoals, reefs, and keys extending in a
southwesterly direction about a hundred miles from the extreme end of
the peninsula of Florida. It is approximately six miles long, has an
avera